


Stranger's Children

by coffeeandoranges



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: All the usual ASoIaF trigger warnings, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Incest, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:01:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandoranges/pseuds/coffeeandoranges
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No one remembers it now, but there is an old name given to children who kill their mothers in childbirth. They called you ‘Stranger’s children.’ For when you were born your mothers ceased to be, and you became children of death.”</p>
<p>A Robert’s Rebellion AU where Rhaegar lives and Aerys dies, but also a bit of an alternate version of ASoIaF.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lyanna, Cersei, Rhaegar

**Author's Note:**

> Since this is an AU, there are more than the usual number of characters still alive, and we should hear all of their voices in time. My style here is a slow burn, and I bounce around from many different POVs, sometimes revisiting the same event another character already witnessed, or expanding on something that was only mentioned in POVs beforehand. 
> 
> My POVs so far are Lyanna, Cersei, Rhaegar, Viserys, Elia, Jon, and Dany, and I seem to be adding to them all the time.
> 
> This chapter is very short-- think of it as a prologue.

 

**Lyanna Stark**

“Winter is coming,” she said.

She could see herself in the looking-glass behind Rhaegar’s royal head, and she looked like a serving girl rather than a queen.  Her hair was thinning. Her face was the color of ash after a burning.

They once called her the loveliest girl in the Seven Kingdoms, but Lyanna knew the bards didn’t say that about her anymore. 

“I have greater concerns than the passing seasons,” Rhaegar said distantly.

“Of course, Your Grace,” Lyanna said, and curtsied.

“It is only… I’d hoped for your leave to return North to help my family prepare for the winter.”

The words seemed stuck to her teeth, and she could only say them with great difficulty.

Rhaegar finally looked up at her from his books and letters.

“And why would they need you to do that?” he said. “Preparing for winter is your family’s specialty, yes?”

“Yes, it is, Your Grace, but I have not seen my family since I birthed Jon. And I had hoped to introduce him to them.”

Rhaegar’s smile was both patronizing and cruel.

“Well, unless they have some strange Northern magic that can make him into a girl, I’m afraid I can’t allow that.”

“But why?” The word “why” came out weaker than she’d intended.

“You are my wife. Your place is with me,” said Rhaegar.

Lyanna looked down, feeling foolish. Of course he would not permit her to return to Winterfell.

_He fears that I will leave with a baby, and return with an army._

_And perhaps he is not wrong._

She bit her lip, thinking of brave Brandon, who rushed in to save her, roasted alive. The Starks had many reasons to hate the Targaryens.

_I am not a Queen_ , she thought as he dismissed her from his presence. _I am a prisoner._

He did not strike her very often, this handsome King of hers, but Lyanna would have almost preferred it if he did. She would have preferred anything to this slow torment of cruel words and isolation and coldness. 

She thought of little Jon, sickly in his bed, attended only by the little Princess Daenerys, Rhaegar’s sister who doted on the child in her own childish innocence. Briefly—very briefly—she smiled. How much her Jon resembled her little brother Ned.

_He_ was why she must please the King. Because if she did not, her little son would be at the world’s mercy. She could not let herself forget that. If she did ever bear him a girl-child, Rhaegar would have little use for her or Jon anymore, having fulfilled his prophecy of the three-headed dragon.

He would have even less use for her brother Ned, who betrayed him on the Trident, and whom he had pardoned, but not forgiven.

The King had not said as much, but Lyanna could read between the lines: as soon as he took what he needed from the Starks, the King would have her brother’s head.

So ever since she weaned Jon, she had starved herself, until she lost her moon blood.

_I will never bear another child of yours._

_Your Grace._

 --

 

**Cersei Lannister**

All of her life she’d hoped for, or feared, or dreaded getting married. And here, on her wedding day, she felt each of every one of those contradictory feelings knotting themselves together in her stomach, making her ill.

Her new husband seemed concerned for her throughout the feast, taking her hand and patting it, like she was a dog.

It made Cersei angry. She was not a dog, no matter how much this man wanted to make her one. Nor was she a child to be coddled. She was a grown woman wed, and she would hold her head high, like the queen she was always meant to be, but never would be.

There was a golden lioness embroidered on the back of her cloak, and a lioness she would always be, though Ned Stark slipped his filthy wolf pelt over her. And though her husband-to-be was only a lord, she vowed she would be a queen in her own heart, if never in reality.

The bedding ceremony was going to be insufferable—half the tribe of unwashed northmen were already hooting awful suggestions at her, spelling out for her all the different ways the Lord Stark could put a little wolf cub in her belly.

How Cersei hated them. And how she hated the fact that they are right. She would have wolf cubs soon, whether she wanted it or not.

Her children should have been lions.

They should have been Jaime’s.

Thinking about Jaime she felt her throat tighten, and her eyes burn with tears.

Then her new husband, Ned Stark, whom she barely knew, placed his hand on hers and informed the rest of the guests there would be no bedding ceremony.

Cersei was dazed, and drunk, as her new husband lead her to their chambers, where they would be untroubled by his bannermen.

“Thank you,” she told him. “Though I cannot imagine why I deserve such kindness.”

She meant it a little sarcastically, but Ned took it seriously, and looked thoughtful and pained.

“You have been through much, my lady,” he said simply, and shut the door behind them.

Cersei pulled off the direwolf cloak and sat on the bed and suddenly she could no longer avoid the ghost of Jaime Lannister, settling between them.

He was so real and present he might be there now, stroking her upper arms against the Northern cold, smiling one of those carefree smiles, telling her it would all be okay.

“He killed him,” Cersei said. “The king killed my brother.”

The man she had wanted to wed all her life, beheading the man she had loved all her life.

She would never forget that day—the blinding flash of light of sunlight on steel as the headsman’s blade came down on her brother’s golden throat, the sound of her own screaming.

 Since that day, Cersei didn’t see how she could ever breathe again.

Then her father married her off to the wolf pup, and here she was, her life torn to pieces at seventeen—no brother and no crown— and now about to cry in her new husband’s bed.

But she could do nothing but cry.

Ned sat on the bed next to her. He put a finger under her chin, and forced her to look him in the eyes. Her cheeks burned with shame at crying in front of this stranger. But he only frowned, and while his grey eyes looked pained, there was no pity in them.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

The day Rhaegar took Jaime’s head, Cersei learned how cruel the world could be. But almost as cruel as watching that act had been the utter indifference that followed. How easily the world picked up and carried on as before, now that her brother was dead. It was as if nothing happened.

No one ever told her they were sorry.

Beside her, Ned looked down and laced his hands.

“They killed my brother too,” he said, simply.

Cersei stopped for a moment.

_Brandon Stark._

_Burned alive._

“I’m… sorry too,” she said.

The words tasted strange on her tongue.

For a moment she feared the sound of them, weak as they were, but then Ned leaned in to her neck and cried himself, needing her strength every bit as much—or more—as she needed his.

They were really both lost forever, their valiant brothers, hers and Ned’s, and there was nothing in the world that could bring them back.

But in the dark Ned and Cersei recognized each other and held each other and kissed when they ran out of words for the night. They settled into bed together like animals in winter. 

When they did consummate their marriage a few days later, Cersei was surprised to find she did not lie with him entirely out of duty.

\--

 

**Rhaegar Targaryen**

Daenerys, the last of Rhaella’s children, and too often forgotten in the multiplayer drama that was King’s Landing, had been betrothed since infancy.

Rhaegar did not want to do it, and Viserys often complained for years afterward that Rhaegar had sold away his rightful bride, but it was necessary to ensure Tywin Lannister would not mount a second rebellion after the Crown killed his first son.

When Rhaegar first introduced Daenerys to her future husband—the youngest of Tywin’s children—they were just children.

During that first meeting they played quietly together, and seemed to get along well. Rhaegar breathed a sigh of relief as he watched them. They were gentle with each other for children of their age, each asking politely before sharing the other’s toys.

Next to Rhaegar, and also watching the children at play, was Tywin Lannister, his normally impassive face exceptionally grave this morning.

_Damn him._

Tywin never smiled. But Rhaegar thought he could try a little harder. After all, the Crown was doing him a great service. A marriage to a Targaryen Princess was more than Tywin could otherwise hope for from his youngest child, who was a dwarf, ugly and misshapen.

Unworthy of his sister, Rhaegar often thought, but it was politics, and the King did what had to be done. He had no desire to watch Tywin Lannister raise the West one more time. The first time was quite enough. 

Afterwards, Rhaegar asked his sister how it went.

Daenerys wrinkled her nose.

“He’s so small!” she said.

But then she added—and she blushed—“But he’s smart. Like you, brother.”

Rhaegar smiled, tolerant as always of his baby sister’s childish desire to wed her big brother. He was the one she loved best.

Encouraged, Rhaegar sent Daenerys to Casterly Rock for a year when she was eight years old. It was a gamble, but Daenerys would be accompanied by six Kingsguard and several of her ladies-in-waiting. One of those ladies-in-waiting would send Rhaegar regular reports.

He was pleased with these reports.

Each letter contained tidbits Rhaegar found increasingly amusing—apparently all the gossip among the servants at the Rock was that Tyrion and Daenerys could almost resemble a pair of twins, each with their shock of white-blond hair, and apparently inseparable.

_Inseparable_.

Rhaegar was not sure he liked that word. It was a word that very much recalled the ghost haunting the castle: the Lannister twins.

Rhaegar preferred to avoid reminding everyone that there had once _been_ a pair of Lannister twins. Jaime Lannister—the fool who thought he could protect the outcome of the Trident, and slew his royal father—deserved every bit of the headman’s sword that he had received.

_Traitor._

The comparison was an affront as well. There could be no comparison between his beautiful little sister and Tywin Lannister’s deformed second son. They could not be twins, no more than his a pig farmer’s pony and his own royal mount could be. 

But then came the truly bizarre letter: the lady-in-waiting who was writing had herself come upon his fair sister and the Imp, as he was called, holding hands and kissing each other. His source insisted it had been innocent, but Tywin still banished both to opposite ends of the castle.

After that, Rhaegar thought it prudent to cut the visit short.

 --

 

The princess looked shockingly grumpy as her litter rolled into King’s Landing.

Perhaps it was because she also looked half-drowned—the gold road was awash in summer rainstorms.

But knowing his sister, it was likely just another of her periodic tantrums. It always amazed Rhaegar how a girl so young could have such a strong will, and definite moods. But that was how Daenerys was. He supposed it had something to do with the circumstances of her birth, in the middle of a storm—she was half storm herself.

Once she had cleaned up, Rhaegar went to visit her.

“Did you enjoy your visit to the Westerlands, dear sister?”

“Yes,” she said, fixing her hair and avoiding his eyes.

Clearly still sullen then.

Rhaegar smiled.

 “Yes, Your Grace,” he corrected her. “Or ‘yes, brother.’”

“Yes, brother,” she said.

Of course she would not choose the honorific. Rhaegar let it go.

 “He is kind to you, your betrothed? If not, say the word and we will find you another match,” Rhaegar said, knowing full well what the response would be.

Dany’s eyes grew large, and she finally turned to look at him.

“No, no,” she said. “I must wed him, brother. We are to ride dragons together, like Aegon and Visenya. We dreamed it.”

“Is that so?” Rhaegar was still amused.

“But Westeros is already conquered, my love.”

Her little sister puffed up her chest like Robert Baratheon at the Trident.

“We will conquer Essos then,” Daenerys said, with such force and authority it startled him.

“Your place is here, Daenerys,” he said, when he had recovered.

“You are a royal princess.”

“Tyrion says I should be Queen.” The words came out of her in a rush.

Rhaegar swiftly backhanded her across the cheek, the same gesture he used with Lyanna whenever the she-wolf grew unruly.

“Never say that again,” Rhaegar said. “Or I shall have you apologize to your good-sisters. They are Queens, not you.”

“Yes, brother,” said Daenerys.

Tears formed in her eyes, and her lower lip trembled, but Rhaegar was unmoved.

Surely she was just being dramatic as usual, his little rainstorm of a sister. The important thing was that he had beaten that strange pride from her expression. His sister she may be, but she would learn her place. 

 --

 

_I could be a Queen._

Several few years later, that phrase still echoed in Rhaegar’s mind as he watched Dany wed into the Lannisters at last.

Viserys was spitting fire beside Rhaegar, and Rhaegar smiled to himself. The Lannister boy would be wise to have a taster check his food before every meal.

If Tyrion died, Rhaegar knew he would not be averse to wedding Dany to Viserys after all. It would be up to Viserys to pull it off. He, Rhaegar, had seven kingdoms to rule, and he had little time for his little brother’s incompetence. Rhaegar had another match in mind for Viserys, anyway, a sweet Northern wolf of his very own, thanks to the match that had galled him so much at the start, Ned Stark and Cersei Lannister, who seemed incapable of producing anything but daughters.

Ned Stark might even thank him if he took one off of their hands, and it would be sweet to hear thanks from that traitorous mouth. 

But he would hold off on that match. Viserys must remain unwed a while yet. Another man might underestimate the little monster and his scheming father, but Rhaegar would not. If Lord Tyrion proved an unsuitable match for a Targaryen princess, there were other ways the union could be dissolved than Viserys’s jealousy.

The ceremony to wed his sister to the Lannisters was small, much smaller than Rhaegar’s first wedding, though rather larger than his second. His sister was a member of the royal family, but she was the furthest from the throne of all of them, and Rhaegar did not want to waste good coin on a wedding that did not require it.

Daenerys knelt before her husband as he cloaked her, and Rhaegar could only wince at the symbolism.

_The dragon does not kneel._

But Daenerys had obviously seen fit to do so—never mind that a stool could have been brought for the dwarf so that it was he, not she, who would be humiliated by her husband’s height.

For a moment, when Tyrion kissed his bride, and held the kiss just a second more than was seemly, Rhaegar truly wanted to kill the boy.

Thus cloaked, kissed, and wedded, Daenerys turned around and looked at her brothers, and seemed to meet Viserys’s gaze. Rhaegar recoiled—there was palpable coldness in the way his little sister looked at their brother, something in her eyes that might be defiance.

Rhaegar could not bring himself to care overmuch, however. Viserys had always taken liberties with their sister, and it appeared Dany did not appreciate them.

_You have made your bed, brother. Now lie in it._

Beside her, Tyrion Lannister was beaming. He was so lost in his own joy, in fact, he soon tripped and missed a step on the stairs as they descended. The crowd erupted in laughter, and his poor sister’s cheeks went pink. But the Lannister boy just laughed with them gamely, and made some inane jape about how his bride was so lovely she even distracted him from walking.

Rhaegar narrowed his eyes.

_Such confidence, for an ugly boy of seventeen._

As the feast began, Rhaegar’s eyes fell on Tywin Lannister. The ghost of a smile was playing on the old lion’s lips, but it was twisted with some measure of bitterness.

After all, Tywin had wanted his daughter, not his son, to wed a Targaryen. At least, at first.

_Does he see in this match a parody of the one he once proposed to my father?_

Rhaegar pursed his lips. Looking at Tywin now—watching that glacially cold mind at work, behind an impenetrable facade—he was glad he had made this match. Since Jaime was dead, this odd little dwarf-child was the old lion’s only heir. And now even that child was at the Targaryens’ mercy. It was almost too funny.

His father had been weak indeed, to complain of Lord Tywin’s power.

Rhaegar had found it very easy to break him so far. 

_Now, if only I could produce the same effect in the Starks…_

The couple of the hour was easy to read as well. There was affection there, though not more than that. They were certainly dutiful. Both seemed happy to stand there and greet the endless line of eager guests.

Tyrion proved to be more charming than Rhaegar had expected; it was remarkable how many of their guests’ names he seemed to know.

Beside him, Daenerys was quieter, but it suited her. The beautiful princess with her long silver hair hardly needed to talk to be charming. Rhaegar did not fail to notice the way her hand curled imperiously over her husband’s shoulder, nor the way the boy looked at her for approval after every statement he made.

Rhaegar smiled.

_Even female dragons rule over all other beasts._

One of those in the long line of guests to be received was a merchant from the Free Cities who called himself Illyrio. He acknowledged Rhaegar with a glance—Illyrio had solved many of the Crown’s problems with the Iron Bank, and Rhaegar regarded him quite fondly—then greeted Princess Daenerys with a kiss on each cheek in the flamboyant manner of his native city, Pentos. 

Something made Rhaegar creep closer to better hear the conversation.

“I understand you and your husband both yearn for the chance to travel,” Illyrio was saying.

Dany looked down demurely.

“That is true, magister. But our place is here.”

There was a glint in the old merchant’s eyes as he spoke.

“Perhaps you could spare some time away from this wretched place to see the finest cities in Essos. At my expense, of course.”

“That would be wonderful, magister,” Dany said, her voice quivering with pleasure.

Then Illyrio presented his gift to the princess. It was a wooden box, and his sister’s exclamation told him what is inside before he saw them himself: three petrified dragon eggs.

“They are beautiful, magister,” she breathed.

Tyrion—for once—was speechless beside her, staring at the dragon eggs as if he couldn’t believe they were real. 

Daenerys turned to her lord husband, and for some reason, the look that passed between the two of them made Rhaegar shiver. 


	2. Viserys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Springtime for Viserys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and kudos! They are really encouraging-- I was (slowly) writing for myself before this, and your comments inspired me so much I blew through chapter seven in a single day. Thanks for that. Here's chapter two; hope you enjoy it.

**Viserys Targaryen**

“Protect your baby sister,” his mother told him, and he’d never forgotten it.

Strange words for his mother to leave the world.

Not a word about Viserys himself, although Viserys was the child Rhaella Targaryen doted on since the day he was born. She stroked his hair and said that while Rhaegar was Aerys’s child, he was hers, and that always made him feel good, and strong. 

Then Rhaella died birthing Daenerys, and left him just those enigmatic words to puzzle over—protect Daenerys from what? The war? Robert Baratheon? His sainted brother had already taken care of that, thank you very much.

But he watched over her anyway. He always felt that she would be his wife, so sometimes when he was very lonely and missed his mother, he would kiss her.

Dany would pull faces and squirm away, but Viserys remained adamant.

“Resist all you like,” he told her. “I will wed you one day.”

If she was so determined to take his mother, the least she could do was give him herself in return. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently it was.

After a while, Viserys found he no longer had the heart to force himself on her, though he still watched her with a jealous eye.

He was the Prince of the Targaryens, a dragon like his brother and sister, with the world at his feet, but he felt aimless and bored. His sister hated him, and his brother held all the real power. Blessed Rhaegar, who acted as if he was better than everyone and everything just because he had slain some idiot with a hammer.

Viserys loved his brother, but sometimes it chafed to always be second-best.

In fact, he was so accustomed to passing unnoticed beneath his brother’s shadow that he was wholly unprepared for the words Rhaegar whispered in his ear one night at a feast.

“It seems my little brother has an admirer,” Rhaegar said, smirking.

Viserys followed his gaze to where his brother’s wife Elia was sitting.

Nonplussed, he couldn’t guess what his brother was getting at.

“Your… wife?” 

“No, the woman sitting next to her.”

Then he saw her. Calling her a “woman” was a bit of a stretch, but there was indeed a young girl seated beside Queen Elia, and who was reddening slightly at the Targaryen brothers’ attention.

“Who is she?” Viserys asked, not particularly interested in the answer.

“One of Doran’s daughters,” Rhaegar said.

 “She’s a child.” Viserys waved a hand dismissively.

“So is our sister.”

Just then, Jon Connington approached and Rhaegar got up to greet him, leaving his brother alone again. Viserys spent a lot of time alone. He folded his arms and glared at them. As the King and his Hand stood there chatting, Viserys’ eyes were surely boring into the back of Rhaegar’s skull, and he only hoped his brother could feel them.

The feast was insufferably dull for a while. When he got up to wander around, Viserys found himself trapped in a conversation with Jon Arryn, a traitor he expected his brother pardoned simply because he was too boring to mount another rebellion.

After suffering a half hour of that old windbag, his equally dull wife Lady Catelyn, and their offspring Robb, anything could be improvement. He decided to seek out the girl Rhaegar had pointed out. He could use a good female distraction.

There were very few women who had their eyes on Viserys—most of them fixated on Rhaegar like suns revolving around a heavenly body—but there was one whom Viserys knew would be interested in dancing with the younger Targaryen brother.

He tried to look as gallant as he approached her, holding out his hand and reminding himself he had recently advanced to the third round in a tourney.

 “Care for a dance?” he said.

The girl looked as bored as he was, and only too pleased for the opportunity.

Arianne Martell _was_ young, as he’d seen earlier—perhaps a year younger than Dany—but up close, she was more of a woman than he’d expected. Her breasts rivaled Dany’s. Her whole body was surprisingly soft for a girl her age, and as their bodies pressed together for the dance, he found that he liked it. It made her endearing.

Her face was lovely as well, and her dark eyes were shining at the prospect of dancing with the prince.

“Princess Arianne, right?”

“So you do know my name,” she said, laughing.

Although clearly excited, she wasn’t carried away by the glamour of the ball like some girls would be, nor did she stutter when she talked to him.

“I am a prince, I must know these things,” he said, seriously. “As a princess, I am sure you are the same.”

“Of course,” she said.  “Which is how _I_ know… that you were talking about the Queen and me earlier with the King.”

“Oh, really? And what did we say?”

“You said you were captivated by the beauty of Dornish women,” she said, steering them both into a pirouette. “That your brother was very fortunate to have wed the second-loveliest of them all.”

“And Queen Elia is only the second-loveliest?”

Princess Arianne looked down shyly, but smiled boldly.

“A lady should never boast of her own charms,” she said. “But I am nothing if not honest.”

Viserys pulled her closer to him, so he could feel the sinuous curve of her waist beneath his fingertips. He heard her intake of breath, and felt a flush of heat rising in his face.

“I am an honest man as well,” he said, tilting his head. “And I happen to agree with you.”

At the end of the night, when he found himself kissing Arianne Martell, he blamed it on the strong Dornish wine.

\--

 

That did not make it any easier to watch his sister wed that foul little creature a few months later.

Especially when said foul little creature far outstripped propriety in the customary kiss that followed the cloaking. Then the fool tripped down the steps, and his sister only laughed and blushed.

It was with rising bile in his throat that he watched Dany accept a cloak of gold.

She was so beautiful it made his chest ache. Even the gold of the cloak—the color of a house Viserys had never found much use for—only brought out the silver in her hair. She had left it unbound tonight, and it streamed behind her. She had never looked more like their royal mother. 

Viserys could not hope to get close to the bride, who was besieged on all sides with guests. He could only watch her from afar, drinking glass after glass of Arbor gold, the bitterness of it all almost choking him.

What haunted him the most was the glance Daenerys shot Rhaegar immediately after she kissed her new husband. At first, Viserys thought it was meant for him, but—with a sensation like hairs on the back of his neck standing up—he realized it was truly Rhaegar for whom she reserved that baffling, withering stare.

Was she mad at him for forcing this match on her? That couldn’t be it, for—strange as it seemed to Viserys—she seemed genuinely comfortable wearing Lord Tyrion’s wedding cloak.

Whatever it was, it was between them, and Viserys didn’t feel like interfering.  

His brother, as usual, had deserted Viserys to work his own way around the crowd, leaving him with only an empty seat for company, which his good-sister soon filled.

“Your Grace. It is nice to see you,” he said, with warmth that—for once—he really did feel.

His brother’s Dornish wife was the only person in the world to whom Viserys felt he could confess anything, any thought or feeling, no matter how embarrassing or wrong. Elia was the only one who would really listen, in that invariably calm way of hers. She’d been his mother’s closest friend during the Rebellion, and in many ways she’d taken Viserys as her own after Queen Rhaella died.

Tonight, Queen Elia was wearing a gown of dark silver, which drew the eye to the way the dark hair around her temples was turning the same color. Most women would rather do anything than call attention to their age, but the Queen was not most women.

“My prince,” she said, kissing his cheek in greeting. “Something tells me you are enjoying the feast as much as I am.”

Viserys could only laugh. As usual, she’d guessed exactly right.

“I am not entirely pleased by this match either,” he said.

“I never said it was the match that displeased me.”

“Then why are you not enjoying yourself, Your Grace?”

“Because I was obliged to sit next to Mace Tyrell for half an hour,” she explained, making a face, which looked strange on her delicate features. 

“The Fat Flower. That is unfortunate,” said Viserys. “But on the other hand, you could have had my brother for company instead.”

“Fair point, my prince.”

It was no secret that Rhaegar was not on good terms with his Dornish wife. Personally, Viserys thought he was on even worse terms with his Northern wife, but from an outsider’s perspective, it seemed the opposite. Queen Elia no longer lived in King’s Landing; that much was known to everyone in the Seven Kingdoms. She raised her daughter in Dorne, away from court and its machinations, and returned only for ceremonies such as this one.

Some called her a recluse, and accused her of harboring a woman’s jealousy about Lyanna, but the truth was that Rhaegar had struck her once during an argument. Elia’s brother Oberyn—widely-known for his hot temper—threatened to castrate Rhaegar if he ever did it again.

So it had been agreed that Queen Elia would return to Dorne with her daughter, as Rhaegar would not let her keep his son. In the years since, she had ceased to be the King’s wife in anything but name and title.

If it bothered Rhaegar that his own wife avoided him, Viserys had yet to see any evidence of it.

Personally, Viserys thought it was a bit of an overreaction to threaten castration over something as simple as an argument, but that was Oberyn. If anything, Elia had probably been more humiliated by her brother’s foolishness than her husband’s blow. 

But Viserys could not help but think, _if only Lyanna’s remaining brothers showed a quarter of the Viper’s fortitude…._

Beside him, Elia Martell was watching the line of guests form in front of Daenerys.

“Do you approve of this match, then?” asked Viserys suddenly, arching an eyebrow.

Elia let out a long breath and looked thoughtful.

“It is… interesting,” she said. “It is not what I would have expected of your brother.”

“How so?”

“I would have expected him to betroth you to Cersei Lannister, honestly,” Elia said.

Viserys sat up abruptly.

“He is considering that?”

“Was. He was considering it. Lady Cersei is wed to Eddard Stark, and has been for several years.”

“So why didn’t he betroth her to me?”

“Several reasons, I believe. You were still a child, and Lord Tywin acted quickly in wedding her to Lord Stark. And as you know, Rhaegar had no wish to upset the Starks after…”

Viserys nodded. Her name didn’t need to be said.

“I don’t believe you would have liked wedding her, either,” said Elia.

“But I’ve never even met Lady Cersei.”

“There were once talks of wedding Cersei to Rhaegar,” said Elia, gently. “She formed quite the attachment to your brother.”

“Her, and half of King’s Landing,” said Viserys, bitterly.

Elia laid her hand on Viserys’s wrist.

“That still leaves one half that is not particularly attached to him,” she said. “In fact, I know of one young lady in particular who has voiced to me her preference for the younger Targaryen brother.”

There was a twinkle in the Queen’s eye now, and Viserys felt his cheeks burn.

Just then there was a bit of a commotion as Daenerys received three large dragon eggs as a wedding gift from an Essosi merchant.

“Dragon eggs? Really?”

Viserys felt a momentary flame of jealousy.

“I suppose if you must wed the Lannister Imp, you ought to get something nice for your trouble.”

For his part, the Imp’s eyes were almost as large as the eggs themselves as he picked them up and cradled them in his short, twisted arms.

“Fool,” Viserys spat. “It’s not as if they’re going to hatch.”

“Lord Tywin’s son is many things, but a fool is not one of them,” said Elia, suddenly serious.

 “He just tripped down the stairs in front of three hundred people,” Viserys protested.

Elia smiled. “Of course he did. And he will make rude japes through dinner, and pretend to be spectacularly drunk later on. It is all a part of his act.”

“So he’s secretly clever then?”

“Oh yes,” said Elia. “He almost beat me at cyvasse.”

“No one beats you at cyvasse.”

“Exactly.”

“But you still won, I hope.”

“Of course. I always do.”

Elia smiled, and for a moment all Viserys saw in that smile was her niece Arianne. They were quite different—Elia was slim as a reed where Arianne was rounded, Elia had silver in her hair where Arianne had only recently flowered. But their delicate features and dark skin, and the slight mischief in their smiles, did recall each other.

Elia patted him on the head.

“My dear prince,” she said, taking her leave. “Do not worry about your sister. Her husband adores her, and he is not a fool. Not many women can say the same; most husbands are either foolish or cruel.”

She had delivered that last line with more than her usual force, and he knew who she was alluding to. For a moment, he hoped that Elia, with her veils and frailty—a woman who was almost a mother to him— had found peace in her homeland.

Then one of her family’s bannermen approached the Queen, and she was called away, but not before Viserys could kiss her hand as she stood.

Alone again, his eyes fell on Lyanna Stark.

Lyanna’s eyes were almost eerily clear and icy, and even from across the room, Viserys could sense the weird power that was said to draw men to her. Many said she starved herself, and Viserys thought it seemed likely, with the way her bones were visible just under her pale skin. His brother would seek her bed tonight.

Viserys almost pitied her.

His brother was not as violent as their father, but neither was he gentle. And he had never forgiven her for bearing a son instead of a daughter.

Still, he thought Lyanna could do better than she had. Queen Elia would never cower or weep the way Lyanna did.

_Aren’t wolves supposed to be fierce?_

The dancing was beginning slowly all around him, but Rhaegar was the first on the floor, dancing first with Lady Catelyn of the Eyrie, who looked somewhat flummoxed to have the King for a dance partner. But that was Rhaegar; of course he had to make the unexpected choice. 

He dominated the feast, this older brother of his, whose good looks and charisma rendered him almost god-like in the eyes of nobles and smallfolk alike. This was the way he’d truly won the war: everyone— perhaps even Rhaegar—would admitted that Robert Baratheon was a better warrior.

But the people loved Rhaegar.

Even now, the Hand, Lord Jon Connington, was watching his King with the kind of stupid adoration usually reserved for the Warrior himself.

Across the room, Viserys felt a pang of sympathy as his eyes alighted on Daenerys and he saw she too was watching Rhaegar, with a clouded expression that must have mirrored Viserys’s own.

Was this, then, why she had accepted her small, ugly husband?

Because, like Viserys, she’d grown up too close to the living myth that was Rhaegar?

Viserys looked back to his brother’s wife, the pale, shrunken, blue-veined ghost of a woman in the corner.

He leapt up to find Arianne. He didn’t know why, exactly, but perhaps he did want to kiss her again after all. He could not promise he would never hurt a woman—he was a dragon, after all—but he could promise he would never do _that_.

He found her after a few moments of searching, dancing with some Tyrell cousin.

“Fraternizing with the enemy?” he murmured in her ear as he approached.

“More like enduring the enemy,” she whispered back. “Thank you.”

“Excuse us,” she told the Tyrell boy crisply.

Viserys mockingly bowed as he accepted her hand, and they began to dance.

He found it difficult to keep his hands to himself. He told himself he couldn’t help it—he had drunk a great quantity of wine, and she smelled wonderful. He encircled her in his arms and pulled her closer than was typically considered appropriate, his hands roaming down her back.

“This is certainly not proper,” she said in his ear.

“If I wanted proper, I’d wed a Stark,” he said into her hair. She was much shorter than him—another thing he liked about her.

“Be careful,” she said, her tone light and mocking. “Many men have regretted marriage proposals made after too much Arbor gold.”

“I’m sorry, princess. Did I make a marriage proposal?”

He twisted one black curl around his long, pale fingers.

“Hardly,” she said. “In Dorne this barely makes us acquaintances.”

“Then what should I do to earn more than that, in Dorne?”

“Kiss me again,” she said, and so he did.

By the end of the night, he’d bedded her.

\--

 

The period of time that followed was the maddest of Viserys’s whole life.

By sunrise the next day, Arianne had taken him over.

His blood was mad with her, she was in his skull, in his bed, he could feel her like a heartbeat beneath his fingers every moment. They complemented each other: pale and gaunt, dark and soft. When they had each other in the dark, she seemed to know his every movement before he did, like they were two halves of one whole, rejoining after an eternity apart.

He knew it must seem he’d taken leave of his senses, and perhaps he had. He did not dream, he could not sleep—he was afraid to close his eyes, for fear then he woke she’d be just another of his dreams.

Every moment apart was torture, and even worse when he saw her in public and had to struggle to contain himself.

It always amazed him how lovely she was, dressed for court, rustling by in her orange-and-yellow silks, smelling of incense and Dornish perfume, her veils glittering with jewels and not quite hiding the mass of shining dark hair beneath them. She was the perfect little princess, and chances were, he’d had her only hours beforehand, and somehow no one knew.

Her dark eyes always found his too, and across the room the curve of her mouth would settle into a mischievous grin, and Viserys was embarrassed by the reaction such a simple thing could pull from him.

He would pass those interminable sessions of court with his eyes locked on her. He was not the only one, either; half the court had noticed the flowering of Arianne Martell. It infuriated him. He longed to cross the throne room and hold her hand like man and wife, to cup her lovely face in his hands and kiss her in front of everyone, to lift her skirts and bury his face between her legs.

_She is mine._

His mother was dead, his brother was wedded to a throne, his sister to a Lannister, but Arianne Martell was _his._

As soon as the sun went down, he would find her. Soon after they first bedded each other, he’d discovered Arianne Martell was the most wanton woman he’d known in his whole life. There was not a spot in the Red Keep they’d not had each other, giggling and whispering and fumbling with their clothes, the excitement of almost being seen only heightening the moment.

Sometimes she gave him little bruises on his shoulders, so in return he made her sit in a hot bath until her brown skin turned pink, then she punished him by tying him to their bed and blindfolding him and taking him. 

And sometimes they just slept together, skin against skin, and Viserys traced patterns with his fingertips up and down the remarkable curve of her back.

She was beautiful.

He thought he’d like to carve her name into the statue of the Maiden at the sept, although she was no maiden.

He had never imagined there was a feeling like this in all the world.

Kissing Daenerys was child’s play compared to this. Once, long ago, he had enjoyed squeezing his sister’s breasts and feeling her soft lips on his own. But Arianne was wildfire made flesh. She ignited something within him in a way little Dany never could.

Let Tyrion Lannister have his little sister in all her cold, imperial beauty, and let his brother have the poor sack of bones that was Lyanna Stark.

He had the Sun Goddess of ancient Dorne, and no woman in the world could compare. 

\--

 

After that night at the wedding, Arianne had not said one word to Viserys about getting married. Viserys found this refreshing—after giving up her maidenhead, most girls would be chomping at the bit to get to the altar.

But Viserys found himself thinking about it anyway. He spent hours pacing up and down the Red Keep, plotting arguments for it in his head against Rhaegar.

He had not forgotten Rhaegar’s oblique suggestion of a match for Viserys, and it was high time he broached the subject with his brother.

“Your Grace,” he said, entering Rhaegar’s solar one afternoon.

“My little brother,” said Rhaegar. “Come in. I have not seen you in weeks.”

Viserys shut the door behind him, and studied his brother, trying to gauge his mood. He seemed mildly irritated by something—although that seemed to be a fixture of his personality nowadays—and Viserys felt a fluttering of uncertainty in his stomach.

Wedding Arianne was not an improper match in any way, but neither was it the most politically desirable.

Viserys only hoped Rhaegar would prioritize his happiness over strategic advantage.

_Since you had no problem inciting a rebellion for your woman, I think you can grant me mine._

Rhaegar smiled, looking as though he had guessed Viserys’s intentions.

“I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about that,” he said. “You seem to be conducting the least subtle courtship in the history of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Viserys swallowed his own irritation. “As we have discussed, it is time I was wed.”

“You mean to wed this girl? Here I thought you were content to bed her.”

“Yes. I do want to bed her. And also wed her,” said Viserys, peevish. “It is not a bad match. She is a princess of Dorne. It’s not as if I’m chasing the scullery maid.”

  “I have already made the Dornish alliance through your good-sister Elia,” Rhaegar said. “If we were to wed you to her niece, it would seem quite greedy of us, wouldn’t it?”

“Dorne is powerful,” Viserys argued. “We can hardly have too many Dornish allies.”

He neither knew nor cared whether this was factually correct, but it seemed true as he said it.

Rhaegar laughed.

“Dorne? Dorne is an appendage on the end of Westeros. Its best days are behind it. Now, the _North_ is powerful. _Our_ family is powerful.”

“Good thing you’ve already made an alliance with the North, then,” Viserys said. “That seems to be going well for you.”

Rhaegar’s face went white, and Viserys knew he had landed a blow at last.

“I offered you the hand of our sister in marriage,” Rhaegar began.

“What? You never once offered me that. You _sold_ her, to that foul little creature, to appease Tywin Lannister.”

“I told you, fool brother of mine, that there are seemly ways out of a marriage contract even after the bride has been cloaked. If you had any brains in your head, you would have thought of a few by now.”

“Did you know—” Rhaegar continued, pointing a finger at Viserys— “That I would have supported you if you had seen fit to widow her? But you didn’t. You spent all that time you could have spent taking back Daenerys, cavorting around the Red Keep with a Dornish whore.”

Viserys could not remember lashing out at his brother, but a moment later Rhaegar staggered back, stunned and clutching his cheek.

Then Rhaegar hit back with unbelievable force.

Viserys saw stars. He felt searing pain as the blow knocked one of his teeth loose, then tasted hot blood pooling in his mouth.

When he opened his eyes, he saw only his brother in front of him: pale, immaculate, inviolable.

Viserys had never hated him more.

“I _will_ wed her,” he said, through the pain. “Or I will speak to Queen Elia about this and I assure you, you never see your children again.”

Balling his hands into fists, he stalked out of the solar, leaving his brother to seethe in his wake.

But—to Viserys’s fury—the only sound coming from the solar was laughter.

The King was laughing at him.

“I was testing you, brother,” Rhaegar called out behind him.

Viserys stopped walking, and turned, but could not meet Rhaegar’s eyes.

“And you failed,” Rhaegar said.

The laughter was gone from his voice.

“You are not a dragon. If you were, you would have taken Daenerys, with fire and blood, the way our family has done since the Doom of Old Valyria.”

Viserys felt a strange heavy sinking in his chest.

“I hate you,” he said, and walked away. It sounded weak, and petty, but it was all he could think of to say.

Later that night, he came to Arianne and wrapped her in his arms. She was gentle tonight; though he had not told her what happened, she instinctively understood he needed kindness, not wildfire.

With her cradled to his chest, his hand tangled in her dark curls, the whole argument— which, months earlier, would have brought him to his knees— seemed strangely unimportant. The only thing that galled him now was the ache in his jaw where Rhaegar had hit him.

“I am a dragon,” he whispered. “And I will take what is mine.”

Arianne stirred in her sleep, but Viserys smoothed down her hair and kissed her forehead until she calmed.

For a while he supposed he was in for a sleepless night. But eventually sleep took him too, and when he slept he dreamed of his mother.

\--

 

An eerie clarity descended over him while he put in motion the threat he’d made to Rhaegar. He meant what he said: if he couldn’t have Arianne, he’d be damned to all seven hells if his brother could have Aegon and Rhaenys.

When he went to Dorne to pay a visit to his good-sister, he brought his betrothed along, as well as forty gold cloaks, so she would be out of Rhaegar’s reach and under his protection as he plotted with the Martells.

\--

 

As soon as they arrived, they got to it quickly, knowing there wasn’t much time.

Elia received her niece and the prince in her own solar, offering them tea with jasmine, much of which would sit untouched as they talked.

Both Elia and Arianne listened gravely as Viserys told them what Rhaegar had said and done. Arianne shook her head and grimaced as he showed her his missing tooth, knowing now who was responsible for it.

After he finished his tale, the Queen bowed her head and remained silent for a long while.

Then she took her good-brother’s hand, and her dark eyes met his, willing him to understand, and Viserys was surprised to find he did not flinch from what she said.

 “Rhaegar is a good king,” she said. “But he is not a good man. And this— this tells me he is not as clever as he once was, either. For there is no good reason to oppose this match.”

Then the Queen stood and paced around the solar, pausing to look out of the window at the endless, sloping dunes around Sunspear, spread out before the castle.

“I often wonder,” she said, almost to herself, “If the bad man will consume the good king, and what we will all do when that happens.”

The light came in through the window and illuminated her bronze skin and liquid dark eyes. For a moment she seemed to Viserys half-dragon herself, small and coiled but full of fire, under the Dornish sun.   

Elia turned back to Viserys and Arianne.

“I cannot tell you the details,” she said. “But you should both know, that if Rhaegar ever goes too far, I have devised a plan.”

At the look on Viserys’s face, she quickly added, “I hope we will never have to use it.”

His mouth went dry, and his heart was pounding, but he nodded.

_Treason._ Hisgood-sister is plotting treason.

But then, he supposed, so was he.

A few days later, Elia, Rhaenys, and Aegon were on a ship bound for a certain merchant’s manse in Pentos.

\--

 

After Viserys Targaryen rode back to King’s Landing with forty gold cloaks and his bride-to-be, he proclaimed his intention to wed Princess Arianne of Dorne in front of the entire court.

\--

 

In private, his brother exploded like dragonflame.

Viserys let him rant and rave, though he took a few gold cloaks with him in case his brother decided to knock out another tooth before his wedding.

“You do not even love her. You are doing this to disobey me, to shame me. And I will not have it.”

“You were willing to tear apart an entire kingdom for a bride,” Viserys retorted. “Are you so surprised I should do the same?”

“Do not begin to compare your selfishness to that. I… I was fulfilling a prophecy, and if there was any other way, I would have found it.”

“Fulfilling a prophecy? Is that what they call it these days?”

“Your japes are not appreciated. Bring me my children.”

“Let me marry my betrothed.”

“What, is she pregnant? Is that why you are so determined to wed her? I would not be surprised.”

Viserys said nothing, knowing it was a distinct possibility. In fact, Arianne’s moon blood was late.

While he tried to think of a reply that did not sound like an obvious lie, his gaze fell upon a woman in the corner, whom he’d supposed to be a servant.

But Lyanna Stark was in the room with them. She was sitting there silently, cringing each time King Rhaegar spoke, her black cloak enormous around her.

Her face was ash-blue. She did not meet his eyes.

When Viserys looked at her, all he could see was his mother.

When he spoke next, he made his voice as cold and factual as possible.

“I shall not require a lavish ceremony,” he told the King. “But I would have you invite the Tyrells. If only so I can savor the looks on their faces, as another Martell succeeds where they could not.”

He ticked off his fingers as he named the other guests.

“The Hightowers. The Tullys. That dullard Jon Arryn, if you must. The Lannisters, if it would be politically expedient. All of House Martell, of course. I will send for Elia and her children when I find out you have done this.”

He did not allow his brother the liberty of a reply. Nodding to the gold cloaks, he turned his heel and left.

To his surprise, Daenerys was waiting for him outside the door to their brother’s solar, her eyes bright with something he had never seen there before, at least not directed at him.

Viserys sighed.

He was in no mood for her; one sibling was quite enough for one day.  

“What? Am I good enough for you now, little sister?”

The princess touched him on the shoulder, and smiled sadly.

“Walk with me, brother,” she said, twining her fingers in his.

Against his will, he felt himself soften.

So he walked with her around the palace, waiting for his little sister to speak. They had spent precious little time together since she was wed, and only now did he see all the little changes in her that—lost in Arianne—he had missed.

There were blue ribbons in her hair, echoing the blue of the cape she had cloaked herself with. She was wearing her hair braided and pulled away from her face, and it brought out the rigid set of her jaw, her proud beauty.

For a moment, he was stunned by how much she reminded him of Elia.

“You look well, sister,” Viserys said, to break the silence.

“Thank you,” she said.

There was a part of him that wanted very badly to kiss her then, but as he leaned in, he changed his mind, and kissed her forehead instead.

Daenerys grimaced.

“What?” he asked, annoyed. “Can a brother not kiss his sweet sister?”

She sighed.

“Of course he can. I do love you, brother,” she said.

“You just didn’t want to wed me. That is a deep love indeed.”

There was a sudden fire in his sister’s eyes, as she grabbed him by the shoulder.

“If I didn’t want to wed you, it was you who made it so,” she said fiercely. “When I was little I thought I could be your wife.”

“Rhaegar, you mean,” Viserys said. “You wanted to wed Rhaegar.”

“No, you. Rhaegar just assumed it was him. But it was you all along.”

“Then why—tell me—are we having this conversation?  Why are we standing here as sister and brother, and not as man and wife?”

“Because when I was little, you used to hurt me,” she said.

“I never hurt you.”

“Yes, you did. You held me down and you kissed me. It used to scare me.”

Ignoring the look on her brother’s face, Daenerys continued.

“You told me that I should be grateful for your attention, when I was a filthy kinslayer who killed our mother.”

Viserys felt his face darken. He did recall when he was younger and the wound of his mother’s death still fresh, what he would say to Daenerys. What he would do to her. 

He’d never expected her to remember.

But apparently she did. And now she wanted to drag it all out into the light, although it was years ago, and she should have gotten over it by now.

“You hurt me,” she repeated, louder this time. “You were cruel.”

“I left your maidenhead intact, did I not?”

“There are other kinds of hurt.”

“And you did kill our mother,” Viserys said.

“No I didn’t. She died, Viserys. But I did not kill her. It was not my fault.”

“Tell me how that is true, exactly, when she died birthing a babe, and the babe survived.”

“It was not my fault,” she insisted. 

Viserys turned to look at his sister. Her beautiful face had gone red and puffy with anger, and she looked less beautiful now.

“Did you know they said the same thing of my husband?” Daenerys went on. “Lady Joanna died just like Mother. He told me what happened wasn’t my fault. I was just a child, he said.”

“I am so very glad you and your husband are happy together.”

“And I am glad you are happy with Princess Arianne,” she said. “I truly am. I _like_ her, brother. She is lovely, and funny, and very kind.”

“She is, isn’t she?” said Viserys.

Try as he might, he was unable to stop the slight smile that appeared on his face at the thought of the princess.

His sister’s lower lip was trembling, the way it always did whenever she was threatening to cry.

“Please, brother,” she said. “I do love you still, despite what you did. I want to put it behind us before the wedding. Please.”

Slowly, Viserys approached his sister. For a moment they stood there, her looking up at him, and Viserys hesitant before her.

Then he put his arms around her shoulders.

“I have missed you,” she said, tearfully.

“I am sorry,” he said, into her soft silver hair.

Meaningless words, by themselves, but he hoped they were enough for her to forget.

Because, truly, he had missed her too.

\--

 

 

A fortnight later, the bells were ringing all over King’s Landing.

The streets were decked with streamers, in red, yellow, orange, and black—the colors of Dorne and of House Targaryen. It was a royal wedding.

_His_ wedding.

Viserys woke the morning of his wedding sorely missing his bride-to-be. Although they had lain together, often and enthusiastically, the kingdom didn’t know that, and it would be suspicious for the bride and groom to sleep in one bed the night before their wedding.

He saw Arianne but briefly the night before, after dinner, when she cornered him and ran her hand down his body, feeling him stir under her touch, though they were forbidden from doing anything else.

“You are terrible,” he told her. “That is cruel.”

She had the grace to at least pretend to be apologetic. 

 “I am sorry, my prince. I know this has been trying,” she said. “I promise to make up for it.”

“But _later_ ,” she said, when he drew her into a deep kiss.

“Of course. Later,” he said, pulling away with a groan.

She blew him a kiss, and he replied with a rude gesture that implied what she could do with her coy kisses.

With a pang, Viserys wondered where his bride was now, on the morning of their wedding. Probably getting her hands tattooed, as was the Dornish custom—an extensive process, as he understood it.

He and his brother were to ready themselves in the same room, cloaking themselves in red and black.

As Viserys entered, the silence was almost oppressive.

“Can you fix this collar?” Viserys said after a few minutes, feigning ignorance.

Rhaegar leaned in and adjusted it, and briefly, everything was the same as always, as though they had not almost come to war with each other.

Rhaegar, of course, was jaw-dropping in their house colors, his black cape sweeping dramatically behind him. Viserys felt quite shabby beside him.

Then Rhaegar handed him the cloak with which he was to cloak Arianne. It was beautiful, the three-headed dragon worked in rubies on flawless black linen. The eye of each head was a diamond.

“I draped Elia with this,” he said, quietly.

Viserys was moved, somehow, but he could not think of the right thing to say.

While he searched for the proper words, Rhaegar looked away, and the moment was over as soon as it had begun.

Viserys’s wedding was to be a grander affair than his sister’s. He steeled himself as they walked out to face the crowd in Baelor’s Sept for the five hundred strange faces he knew would be staring back at him.

Indeed, it was overwhelming, rather like walking onstage.

Beside him, Rhaegar became a different person all of a sudden: no longer the sullen brother of the dressing room, the King was beaming and waving to nobles and smallfolk alike. It left a bad taste in Viserys’s mouth. He looked for his sister instead.

Daenerys was off to one side in the front row, wearing her hair pulled back as she did so often now, and standing beside her husband. Both were clad in red and black. Lannister was watching the proceedings with the alert, curious air of someone watching the early rounds of a tourney.

_You_ do _like the game, don’t you? Elia was not wrong. Play it in my sister’s favor, little man, or I will geld you._

Next he found the Martell delegation in the crowd. They were easy to find; the wife and children he’d promised Rhaegar were front and center, returned from their adventure in Pentos.

Elia smiled warmly at him, and Viserys could only smile back. Beside her, Rhaenys and Aegon looked up at Viserys, who felt strangely pleased by the attention.

They were growing up quickly now—the girl looked as though she had flowered. But of course, that was to be expected, since Daenerys was younger than Rhaenys, and his sister was already wed, let alone flowered. But Rhaenys was frail like her mother, and looked so much younger than her real age, so everyone forgot about her. Viserys made a note in his mind to reach out to her more often. If he had not met Arianne, he might have fancied taking Rhaenys to wife.

Aegon, in contrast, was strong and handsome and very much resembled his royal father.

_The first head of the dragon_ , Viserys thought. _The one he dotes on._

Rhaegar made no secret of his favoritism, so Viserys couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of coldness toward the boy.  It was not fair that his sister Rhaenys was so often overlooked, or that Lyanna’s son Jon—named after Jon Connington—was downright ignored. In fact, Viserys doubted he’d spoken ten words to Lyanna’s wolf spawn, a very shy boy who blushed when anyone looked at him.

Lady Lyanna was there, with Jon, too, but they were both hidden towards the middle of the crowd. Clad all in blue, and frighteningly tattered-looking, she reminded him of a drawing he had seen of one of those infamous ice creatures from the North. Although the other guests were giving her a wide berth, she held tightly to her little son. Rhaegar wanted a girl, Viserys knew, a girl-child he could name Visenya and complete the blasted prophetic triangle he spent so much time worrying about. But Lyanna did not look like a woman fit to bear a child.

With a stab of revulsion, he wondered if Rhaegar would kidnap one of Eddard Stark’s daughters if Lyanna died.

His face must have looked unusually grave, because at the moment the doors opened and the bridal party filed in, Rhaegar elbowed him and hissed, “Look happy. Your bride is here.”

_No, my bride’s brothers are here, and I don’t want to look at_ them _._

Doran Martell was reportedly too ill to attend the wedding. Left to lead the Martells in his place were his singularly unexciting sons, Quentyn and Trystane.

But behind them— oh, behind them—

Arianne was stunning, in a long gown of orange and white. The tops of her breasts were just visible in her bodice, but her hair was hidden modestly beneath the veil.

Each of her hands was tattooed with the brown ink they called henna, her veil was adorned with bright jewels, rubies and sapphires, and her nose pierced with one large golden ring. Her lips were red and her eyes were darkened with kohl.

The Sun Goddess.  

Viserys could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest as she took her place beside him. She smelled and looked intoxicating; it was all he could do not to rip her clothes off then and there.

As the septon droned on and on above them, she leaned forward just a bit, so he could see more of her breasts. Viserys felt a sound like a little moan escape him, and Arianne smiled a delicious, wicked smile.

They had to behave themselves after that, though, because there was a vein in his brother’s temple that looked about to explode.

The part where he had to cloak her came surprisingly fast; Viserys was almost not prepared for it. But he remembered just in time, and then Arianne was no longer a Martell.

The three-headed dragon looked defiantly out at the crowd from the princess’s back.

“With this kiss, I pledge my love.” Viserys’s voice was hoarse as he said the words of the ritual.

Everything felt dizzy and surreal, but Arianne was warm and solid as he kissed her.

The only thing he kept thinking was that this was it. He’d done it. In the face of his brother’s opposition, he’d said he would wed her, and now he had.

That pleased him, almost as much as his bride did.

The sept as they processed out was a riot of color and noise. The Martells in particular were uproarious—Viserys caught a glimpse of Elia’s brother Oberyn seizing his paramour and kissing her as though he, not his niece, was the one getting married.

Unlike the rest of her house, Elia Martell was dressed as a Targaryen, in sober red and black, and she was wearing her crown for the occasion: a simple circlet of silver that stood out against her dark hair.

Fleetingly, he thought, and with apologies to his royal mother, _Westeros has never seen a finer queen._

As he drew near her, Elia seized his hand and pulled him close for a moment, and she whispered eight words into his ear, eight small words that brought Prince Viserys Targaryen—who had not wept since he was a boy of four—to tears.

_Your mother would be so proud of you._


	3. Cersei, Elia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All hail the Queens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short, fast, and plotty. In the coming chapters, we're going to slow down a bit to balance it out. Thanks for reading!

**Cersei Lannister**

 

How times had changed.

If you had asked her fifteen years ago, if she ever thought she would look forward to letters from her youngest brother almost as a child looks forward to his name-day, Cersei would have suffocated from laughter.

But it was true. She would never have thought so as a child, but there was much of her twin in her youngest brother. Whenever Tyrion grinned or made some easy jape, he was Jaime come again, and—almost against her will—she’d learned to care for him. Once she opened up, he responded in turn, as if he’d waited patiently all his life for the chance to love her too.

She was glad of their renewed association, especially now that every raven she received from King’s Landing was more interesting than the last.

They’d wed little Tyrion to a dragoness.

How she had howled with laughter when it happened—just the image of her dwarf teenage brother, who not that long ago seemed unlikely to inherit so much as a hill of beans, betrothed to a Targaryen princess famed far and wide for her beauty—

It was too much.

To be sure, Daenerys was not exactly the foremost of the dragons—hidden behind the cape of shining King Rhaegar, and another older brother, Prince Viserys, plus the King’s two Queens, one of whom he’d kidnapped from her family and started a rebellion over, and the three royal children, who were rumored to be the three heads of the dragon of ancient prophecy, plus the King’s loyal Hand, Lord Jon Connington.

Behind all of them, Daenerys was something like ninth in line for the throne.

It was actually a logical match from Rhaegar’s perspective. The King’s sister had some strategic value, but not as much as his own children would, once they flowered. Meanwhile, since he had summarily executed her twin brother, the original Lannister heir, Rhaegar needed to appease Tywin, but since Tywin had already married off Cersei, that left Tyrion.

She’d never heard her brother so happy.

If Tyrion was to be believed, Princess Daenerys was as wise as the Crone, kind as the Mother, and more beautiful than the Maiden herself, though Cersei suspected he would have said the same of just about any woman he married.

He wrote as rapturously about the intricacies of court life as he did about his new princess bride. Cersei, deprived of court intrigue after over a decade of life in the North, pored over each letter hungrily.

Even if Ned’s mouth tightened into a thin line when he saw her reading them.

Cersei was generally happy in her marriage—happier than she’d ever expected to be, in truth—but sometimes the isolation of the North got to her. Ned knew how much she missed the south, but the King forbade the Lord and Lady of Winterfell from visiting King’s Landing, for fear Queen Lyanna would leave with them.

Truthfully, Cersei did not expect Ned to take her to the capital. The situation between the King and House Stark was too precarious for that. She would never disturb that for something as simple as her own yearning for King’s Landing.

She hoped her husband didn’t think of her as another Lynesse Hightower, missing her gold and jewels and frippery.

The only thing Cersei missed was the game.

That, and what family remained to her. The letters that flew across the country—from her father in Casterly Rock, from her brother in King’s Landing—were a poor replacement, but they would do.

What Tyrion wrote of the King made her glad she never married Rhaegar.

Rhaegar’s Dornish wife no longer lived in the palace or the city. Elia Martell retreated into Dorne and surfaced only occasionally beside her children. Cersei read much and more of the Dornish wife, for the Queen was one of Tyrion’s favorites.

As for Rhaegar’s Northern wife… that was the first letter she decided she ought to show Ned.

On the day that letter came, she found her husband in the godswood, praying to the strange Northern tree-gods she’d never quite warmed to herself.

“What is this?” he asked, frowning.

“A letter from my brother.”

Cersei clutched her shawl around her for warmth—though it was still summer elsewhere in the kingdom, winter was beginning to set in around Winterfell.

“It’s about your sister,” she said, touching his arm.

The frown deepened on her husband’s face. Ned got off his knees.

The look on Cersei’s face must have given everything away, because Ned’s mouth twisted sadly.

“This will not be a pleasant letter to read, will it?”

“No, my dear,” she said. “It will not. Come find me when you are done.”

Ned went off to his solar to read, and Cersei paced in their bedchambers, wringing her hands in a way she knew irritated Ned.

When he entered he looked as furious as she had expected, all flashing eyes and jutting jaw.

“That man is an animal,” said Ned without preamble. “I don’t understand how this country accepts him as King.”

“I know.”

And she did. It could easily have been her as Rhaegar’s wife, shamed and betrayed as he’d done to Elia, or _consumed_ , as he was doing to Lyanna. This letter was a stark departure from all of Tyrion’s previous letters, which were filled with breathless minutiae about scandals and affairs and gossip. Meeting Lyanna had shaken him.

It seemed the Northern Queen was a mere shell of the beauty she used to be. She was lonely and deeply unhappy, and grateful for every scrap of attention. The rest of the court avoided her. It was somewhat understandable given that, according to court gossip—which Tyrion admitted there was a grain of truth to—she looked more like a half-starved dog than a human woman.

Ned threw the letter in the fire.

“No one has told me this,” Ned said.

His voice was quiet in a way that made Cersei shiver.

“I have sent letter after letter to King’s Landing,” he said. “And each time she assures me she is happy, she is fine. Yet she will not visit me, though, and I am forbidden from visiting her. I do not wish to start a rebellion, but I do wish to see my sister. It is time for her to come home.”

He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. If Ned were another man, Cersei might have expected him to sink his fist into the wall.

“What do I do with this knowledge?” Ned said, sounding close to tears. “‘Do not come find me, Ned,’ she wrote. ‘Do not risk starting another war, Ned. I could not bear to lose you,’ she said.”

Cersei put her hand on his shoulder, and he leaned into her.

“If it were his sister, my father would be marching at the gates,” Cersei said.

“That is what we must do,” Ned said, sounding dazed. “We must march to King’s Landing and demand her release. He should never have taken her, and she needs to come home.”

“I’m not suggesting that. I’m simply saying, that is what my father would do. He would never bear the insult.”

“What can I do, but the same? I’ll call my banners tomorrow. This must be stopped, and now.”

Cersei shook her head.

“That is rash, and you know it,” she said. “The North is preparing for winter now, not war. It could take us a year to muster the arms we would need to win.”

“I suppose you think we should wait for your brother and his plots? A boy of what, sixteen?”

“Seventeen,” said Cersei, raising an eyebrow. “And he does not lack for help.  He mentioned Queen Elia has had her eye on the situation for quite some time.”

“The Queen has had thirteen years to help my sister. And here we sit. I do not think the Queen cares for her, not after what happened at Harrenhal.”

Cersei wished Ned had not burned the letter—she was trying to remember each and every detail.

“Perhaps. But perhaps not. The Queen has other concerns besides your sister. If it were come to war, and Rhaegar died, the throne would pass to Aegon. They say the prince is exactly like his father. Perhaps she is trying to work out how to depose Rhaegar in such a way that Aegon could not hold the throne after him.”

“I am not trying to depose the King,” said Ned. “I am trying to take my sister and nephew away from him before he destroys them entirely.” 

“But the King will not see it that way,” Cersei reminded him. “He’s already fought one war over Lyanna, another would be a threat to his sovereignty.”

“My sister... She is my only sister…”

“ _This_ is why we play the game of thrones,” said Cersei fiercely. “Exactly this. You win, or you die. If we rush to King’s Landing now, we will most assuredly die. If we play, there is still a chance we can win.”

“Who knows?” she said. “It could be the King is treating her this way for exactly this reason. If you march south, he can slaughter you on an open field, and no one can stop him. It is unlikely he has forgiven you for the Trident, although he was forced to pardon you. ”

“They kidnapped my sister and murdered my brother and father,” said her husband. “That is not much of a pardon.”

“Kings do not think that way,” she said, sadly.

Ned looked so upset she almost left him to his grief, but something prompted her to stay.

“That is not all, either,” she said, twisting a strand of long golden hair in her fingertips.

“What else, then?” said Ned, bleakly.

“Tyrion wrote there is talk of a proposal. Did you read that part? One of our daughters for Aegon, or Rhaegar’s brother Viserys.”

“Absolutely not.”

Cersei fought the urge to sigh.

“Even if I hadn’t known about Lyanna, I would not permit it,” said Ned. “I will not have one of our daughters around him.”

Cersei had to admit there was a part of her that felt the same. Although she fancied the notion of one of her girls—Myrcella, or Sansa, or Arya—marrying the prince, she did not fancy the price that would come with it.

Though Myrcella or Sansa were both bright, pretty, lady-like… perhaps…

_No._

She imagined her beautiful girls, bruised and starving, and felt her breath catch in her throat. No crown was worth that.

And Arya? Arya would slit Rhaegar’s throat in his sleep.

Cersei felt herself smile. She had a soft spot for her youngest daughter, who was every bit as boyish as she herself had been at that age. She only regretted Arya did not have a twin to trade clothes with. But then, she did not need one—both Ned and Cersei encouraged Arya’s unconventional interests, allowing her to hack and dance and slash as she pleased with the sword she called _Needle_.

Cersei and Ned had one son as well, Rickon, a whirling dervish of a three-year-old who was often lost in the commotion he and Arya would create.

Perhaps… There, that was the solution—Rickon could marry Princess Rhaenys. Admittedly Cersei knew little of Elia, and what she knew firsthand was colored by her childhood jealousy of Rhaegar’s queen, but Tyrion wrote of her as though she’d placed the stars in the sky, and her brother’s respect was not easily won.

With all this was percolating in her mind, Cersei suddenly realized how _alive_ she felt. Her blood was rushing in her veins, awakening a part of her she thought lost forever beneath the Northern snows. She had not felt this way since she was a teenager fucking Jaime.

She smiled, the memory conjuring both fondness and pain. _Well, it was true._

While Cersei loved Ned, in a deep, affectionate way that bubbled up and surprised her sometimes, she still cherished the memory of her twin. Her memories were something Rhaegar could never take from her, though he’d taken Jaime’s head and his life, and Ned Stark would not deprive her of it either.

“You Northmen are wise in the ways of the winter,” she began, turning to face Ned. “You know how to store up food, and melt the ice before it builds and breaks the window panes. You survive the cold, no matter how harsh. You are born to it, and that is what you do.”

Cersei smiled.

“Well, your wife is a lion of the Rock, and this is what we do: we are born to play the game, and we are born to win. It is in our veins. And I promise you, as your wife and as a Lannister, that we will get your sister back.”

Ned looked up, startled by the fire in her tone.

_Oh, my darling, you have seen nothing yet._

She began pacing around the room again, ticking off her fingers.

“When Rhaegar writes with his offer, we will refuse him our daughters. But we must offer him Rickon for Rhaenys, so we do not seem uncooperative. The girl is said to have her mother’s nature, and Queen Elia will protect him—everything I have read of her from Tyrion suggests it is in her character to do so.”

“I will write to my brother again, to see if we can arrange a meeting, so he can tell us more about this plan of his, the one he’s hatching with his little princess. There may yet be a way out of this that will not lead to war.”

“Then, I will write to my lord father, asking his support. He will say yes, for he has no love for Rhaegar. Our houses took down one mad king; surely we can take down another. And that is what we will do.”

Pleased with herself, Cersei did a girlish pirouette and sat down next to her lord husband, who was looking at her with awe and perhaps a bit of fear in his eyes.

“Now,” she said, preening. “Tell me how much you love me.”

“Very much indeed, my lady wife,” he said, with that quiet growl she’d come to enjoy.  He nuzzled her neck like the wolf he was, leaving a trail of kisses down to her breast.

_He is not Jaime_ , she found herself thinking. _But I do like this husband of mine, sometimes._

 

 

**Elia Martell**

 

If Elia Martell had a weakness, it was a yen for the impossible.

She knew it as a child, when she found she liked to make the riskiest plays in Cyvasse. It thrilled her to lengthen the odds. But she knew what a self-destructive tendency this was, so she curbed it as much as possible.

It was not her fault that playing with average odds bored her.

From a young age, Elia’s septas and later, her progressively more alarmed maesters, all told her one thing: she was brilliant, perhaps the most brilliant mind in the Seven Kingdoms, and that was why she enjoyed making things harder for herself.

After all, she’d settled for nothing less than the hand of the Crown Prince. She had protected his family from the Mad King and the Rebellion, engineering Rhaella’s escape to Dragonstone. Then she had evaded the Crown Prince —now the King—each time he sought to counter her, and manipulated him more than he knew.

Even the skulking shadow army of King’s Landing—its spies and whisperers, a coterie of dread led by the eunuch Varys, who was one of her closest friends—feared her.

They called her the Master. 

She was the one who bought Ned Stark’s life, the one who assured Rhaegar Ned would never revolt if he knew his sister was in Rhaegar’s hands. She regretted that now, as it had turned out worse for Lyanna than she would have wished, but the other Queen did survive yet, and the Starks would live, to breed and fight another day through Lord Eddard.

 But increasingly, it was becoming clear that what Rhaegar had done to Lady Lyanna would bear fruit, sooner rather than later, as she’d always known it must. The Starks would march south for Lyanna. It would come to war.

But who would sit the throne afterward? It could not be Aegon—although she loved her son, he took too much after his father—and Elia was determined to wipe out, forever, that strain of madness from the Targaryen seed. No more prophecies, no burnings, no more bruised and battered wives: she had dedicated her life to this, and she was not without allies. Varys, Illyrio—both good men, laying everything into place that they would need for the coming continuation of the rebellion.

It could not be Viserys, either, although Elia loved Rhaella’s little prince as much as she loved Aegon, or more.

Viserys, who had worried her for so long—he seemed to develop a cruel streak, during a brief period after his mother’s death—but the boy had turned out alright in the end. The moment he met her niece, something changed. As if all he’d wanted all along was just something of his own, to cherish and defend.

Now Elia was almost glad of Rhaegar’s opposition to the match, for it was that which forced Viserys to come into his own, to become a man worthy of Doran’s prized daughter. Of course, he and Arianne would attempt to wield power together, as they were both ambitious, but—bless their hearts—they were both so inept, truly, that they would not do much damage. It didn’t matter though. There were few matches that suited each other better. They were madly in love. How wonderful it had been to discover Viserys had his mother’s heart, beneath his father’s madness. 

Yet how terrible, to discover that all along it was Rhaegar, the King—who had the whole realm blinded with his brilliance and beauty—who carried the torch that Aerys lit.

Rhaenys could not sit the throne, either, because Elia loved her daughter more than her son—she freely admitted it, at least in her own mind—and would not wish such a fate on sweet, gentle Rhaenys, who reminded her of Doran more and more every day. She dreamed instead of wedding Rhaenys to someone kind and honorable, who would treat her well, and keep her far away from the game of thrones. Perhaps one of the Stark children, if they’d finally managed to produce a boy. She would have to write to Lord Eddard and Lady Cersei to find out.

No, Elia had known for several years who would sit the Iron Throne when Rhaegar died, and of course it was the biggest gamble she would ever make. She had saved her masterpiece for the end of her life, for she felt curiously certain she would not live through the coming rebellion.

She had thought about it and thought about it and there was no other desirable outcome than this: Daenerys Targaryen must be Queen Regent.

She had known the girl would be Queen one day, even when she was a child.

Although she was only a princess, and of a lower rank than Elia’s own daughter, she carried herself with a kind of steely authority that only grew more evident as she grew older. She was compassionate as well, and in a way that seemed different, and more permanent, than the occasional self-serving compassion Elia saw in her brothers.

Alone of all the children at court, Dany was the only one who played with the awkward boy-child Jon Targaryen or spent time with his mother Lyanna. A pretty and charming little girl, Daenerys was the only one in her family who could pull a smile from Lyanna’s wasted face.

At seven years old, she’d come to Elia in tears over Lyanna’s situation.

“Queen Elia, Your Grace, Queen Lyanna told me she wants to go home to see her brothers,” she said, her face red as a beet beneath her childish tears.

“But my brother Rhaegar forbade it. Can you ask him, Your Grace? Can you ask him if she can go home? She is so sad all the time, Your Grace. I want to help her.”

“Why don’t you go and ask him first, little one?” Elia had said, curious as to the outcome of such a conversation.

It had been a difficult lesson for the girl.

Elia knew, of course, what Rhaegar would say, but deep down, she’d hoped his sister’s childish innocence would persuade him.

It did not.

But Daenerys kept that same strange feeling of hers for other people, that instinct to alleviate suffering, and Elia nurtured it as best she could.

Then there was the factor of Daenerys’s little husband.

Elia had met him long ago, when he was only her betrothed—oddly enough at a cyvasse game.

The boy intrigued her from the beginning, nearly besting Elia at the game that had become her signature.

She had the odd feeling of looking back in time when she watched Tyrion at work. She saw much of herself in him; he was as bold as she had been at that age, and in his way, as proud and vain of his intellect as a more handsome man might be of his looks.

Watching Lady Joanna’s child grow up was a constant joy to her as well, so much so that she could almost forgive House Lannister for producing Tywin.

The prospect of him wedded to Daenerys intrigued her. Much depended on their taking to one another. She had waited as anxiously as Rhaegar for news on whether his Lannister alliance would work out.

They seemed to like each other, though, and for that, Elia breathed a sigh of relief.

Elia watched them closely at their wedding, fascinated. Their bond was more mysterious, and more delicate, perhaps, than Viserys and Arianne’s mad passion for each other, but Daenerys and Tyrion seemed connected in a way that went beyond the vagaries of husbands and wives. 

If she was forced to put a name to it—and if she were a more superstitious woman— she might say that the force of destiny hung heavily over them both.

Then came the dragons.

\--

 

On her wedding night, Illyrio gave Daenerys three dragon eggs, a gift that was largely symbolic, if costly, and it had pleased her at the time to watch Rhaegar’s eyes narrow at the implications.

In all seven hells and possibly an eighth one, Elia had never expected that the princess would come to her about a year later, during the chaos that preceded her brother’s wedding, and tell her, calmly and precisely, that she had miscarried her first child and birthed three living dragons.

“Dragons,” Elia said, feeling faint.

The Dornish Queen had seen some of the dark underside of the world—heard prophecies and dreamed unusual dreams—but this was something she’d never expected. It shocked her to the core.

She would not have believed the girl if she had not seen them herself.

Indeed they were real: three tiny, sleeping dragons, one black, one red, and one gold, nestled in a basket.

Daenerys had brought them to Dorne under great duress; trying to hide them from her brothers and the rest of the court had not been an easy task. 

Like all infants, they were not always quiet. An even more pressing problem was that they ate their bodyweight in cooked meat—at one point Dany and Tyrion were taking so much meat back with them from dinner it began to look bizarre, and Tyrion was forced to invent increasingly implausible plots for stealing meat from the kitchens.

Daenerys was shaking with laughter as she told Elia the story.

“I consider myself fortunate,” she said. “Did you know, Your Grace, that I happen to be wed to a walking encyclopedia of dragon lore?”

The utter glee on Dany’s face was infectious, and Elia felt herself smile despite the absurdity of it all.

“I thought to be a mother,” Dany said, squeezing Elia’s hand. “But I never thought to be a mother of _dragons_.”

Elia could only stare at them, nestled in blankets and hot coals. 

“How?” It was all she could ask.

The princess’s face became serious again.

“I don’t know, exactly,” she said. “All I know is that I was with child. And I was not feeling well one afternoon, and I woke and—“

Elia touched her hand gently. It was always difficult to lose a child.

“—the child was gone. It was such a mess. Tyrion was at court, and I just wanted him there. He apologized so many times for leaving me that day. But I was not well. After it happened, I lit a fire in the hearth and put the eggs in it.”

Her eyes acquired a strange cast Elia had never seen there before, something regal and cold and unmistakably Targaryen.   

“I don’t know why I did it. It hurt so much, I just wanted it to stop hurting. I was watching the eggs burn up, and then I just—just curled up and sat there in the hearth with them. I didn’t feel a thing, but I could smell my hair burning. I thought I should probably get out, but then…. They _hatched_.” 

Even leaving aside the miraculous implications of Daenerys surviving a burning, Elia’s mind was working, trying to incorporate the dragons into the plan. There was no question it supported Daenerys’s cause—what had happened could be nothing but a clear sign of the gods’ favor, and Elia did not even believe in the gods all that much.

“What do you intend to do with these… children of yours?”

“Your brother is too ill to attend the wedding, is he not?”

Elia flinched at the flat way the girl stated her brother’s weakness.

“Yes. You might say that.”

 “Then I would ask that he shelter them here until after the wedding.”

“And then?”

“Tyrion and I will take them to Magister Illyrio’s house in Pentos and raise them.”

 “Magister Illyrio…”

“He gave them to me, perhaps he knew this would happen. And he did invite me to his manse, the night of my wedding.”

“He most certainly did not know, princess. Dragons have been gone from the world for almost two hundred years,” said Elia.

The girl looked crestfallen. “But he would still let us stay with him, right?”

If Elia had anything to say about it, he would.

“I should think so,” she said. “But... what are you going to do about your brothers? You are a royal princess, your absence would not pass unnoticed. I could be remembering wrong, but do dragons not take several years to mature?”

“Tyrion thinks he can help them grow faster.”

Elia smiled; of course the boy would think so.

“What will you do with them, when they are full-grown?”

“Sometime when I am in Pentos, when they are almost full-grown, I will write to my brother.”

 “The King?”

Dany nodded, looking grave.

“And I will tell him that I have dragons,” she said. “And then I will tell him that if he has not released Queen Lyanna and Jon to her lord brother by the time I return, then I will take her there myself, in fire and blood.”

 The girl was barely fourteen, but Elia had never seen anyone look more like a queen than she did at that moment, her shoulders thrown back, her head high and defiant, her right hand hovering protectively over the basket that held her precious dragon-children.

“It will come to war,” Elia said quietly, at last.

“Then let it,” Daenerys said, sounding fourteen again.

“Hush, child,” said Elia, a bit more coldly than she’d intended. “You have never seen a war, you do not know what they are like.”

Elia sighed. She had worked to avoid another war. But with the way all the right ingredients for it seemed to be falling in place around her—the restive North, the ailing Lyanna, the increasingly cruel and unpredictable King, and now blasted _dragons_ —they seemed to hurtling toward it at full speed.

The next few years were going to be difficult, even for her, Elia Martell, who must rule the realm without the benefit of a throne. 

“Please take care of my children,” she said to Daenerys. “When you are Queen.”

Dany’s brow furrowed. “Of course, Your Grace.”

 “Be kind to your brother too,” Elia said. “My niece loves him so.” 

The girl nodded. She still looked worried, perhaps at the resigned tone in the older woman’s voice.  

“I loved your mother,” Elia said then, with the air of drawing water from a deep well.

She did not look at Daenerys’s face—could not look at it—as she finally spoke out loud about the thing she’d kept locked inside of herself all these years, the force that drove her to do everything she’d done.

Queen Rhaella’s face swam before her, wearing the sad, lost expression she’d worn the last time Elia ever saw her alive, her cheekbones darkened with bruises.

Then she saw her as she was before that terrible day: Rhaella, the mother, singing to little Viserys in the nursery. Elia could hear once more the purity of her singing voice, her rare laughter.

“She was a sweet woman, with a gentle heart. She deserved every happiness, and received only pain.” Elia’s voice twisted in her throat.

She sat down next to Daenerys, willing her face to compose itself. Immediately the mask dropped into place, and to the princess’s eyes she was the Queen once more.

“Everything I have done, I have done for her, to protect her children—you and your brothers. From each other, if necessary. Every humiliation—what her son did to me before the eyes of all seven kingdoms—was as nothing compared to what Rhaella went through. Your father was a terrible man, as terrible and cruel and violent as any tyrant the world has ever suffered.”

Daenerys flinched. But she had the girl’s attention now, and she would talk as long as she needed to. This was likely to be her last chance to talk to Rhaella’s youngest child, the one who would inherit the throne and—for the first time in hundreds of years—rule, with the force of the world’s deadliest beasts behind her. Elia found she had much to say.

“You have seen what your brother Rhaegar can do.  I have now told you about your father. What I mean to say is this: do not rely too much on death to make you Queen. Avoid full-out war, if at all possible. If your brothers yield, spare them. If the great lords fight you, defeat them, but when they surrender, _pardon them_. ‘Fire and blood,’ you say, but that means nothing if the kingdom you inherit is a kingdom of ashes.”

Elia looked at Daenerys sadly.

“You are a woman, and so the path before you is ten times more difficult than it should be. My own mother cherished me rather less than she did my brothers, and yet I was the cleverest of all. If there is anyone who will take my place after I am gone, it is that husband of yours. _Use him._ He and his House are quite adept at finding solutions to things that involve gold, not blood. But you must be Queen Regent, not him. If he ever forgets that, put him aside.”

Elia met the girl’s eyes.

They were pure and violet and intense, and by the time she was grown, they would be able to silence any man with a single glance.

“Queen Mother,” the girl said, her voice soft.

Elia sighed.

How often those two titles—queen and mother—went hand-in-hand. If Daenerys succeeded in taking the throne, she would be the first woman in three hundred years, and perhaps ever, to wear a crown her husband, brother, or father did not give her.

All the more reason for Elia to help her succeed.

“You must listen to me, Princess,” Elia began. “Remember every word I say, for this is your first plot, but I assure you, it is not mine.”

Daenerys’s face was white with anxiety, but she nodded.

“The moment your brother’s wedding feast concludes, you will slip away with a friend of mine. His name is Varys, he is a eunuch and a spy. They call him the Spider. Yours and Tyrion’s passage on a ship to Dorne will be arranged. You will pick up your children from my brother, and he will see you on a ship to Pentos. Make the least amount of fuss possible. As far as everyone knows, you are taking Magister Illyrio up on his offer to visit him in his manse.”

“Then you will write to your brother that you have decided to go on a tour of the wonders of Essos, and tell him not to worry, that you will be back soon. Conceal the dragons as they grow. Do not wait for their full maturity, only wait for them to become a sufficient threat.”

“At the earliest possible moment—and it must be just that, _earliest_ , and _possible_ —you can send your letter asking for the King to release Lady Lyanna, and tell him about your children. I suspect that the faster this plot moves, the more bloodshed we will avoid. Do you understand?”

Daenerys nodded, and pressed her hands into Elia’s own.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said, her voice full of feeling, her eyes full of pale fire.

Elia accepted her thanks with a certain chilliness.

_And I must stay here, and do everything in my power to keep the Seven Kingdoms from boiling over before you return._

Elia Martell always enjoyed plays with long odds, but she hoped she would not regret this one.

“Gods be with you, Mother of Dragons,” Elia said.

She watched as the girl took her leave, her mind spinning.

The crude plot they’d concocted would do for now, but she needed to sleep on this for a while, turn it around in her mind and refine it. Between trying to find a way for Viserys and Arianne—those foolish, besotted children—to wed each other, and now this, she needed to rest. Her mind was strong, but unfortunately her body was not-- and she needed both.

The coming season would be tiring.

She hoped she’d frightened the girl a little bit, said enough to make her think twice before she burned the kingdom down.  But she would not know if her words had any effect until the girl returned with the dragons now sleeping in her good-sister’s solar. If her advice didn’t take, Elia did not see a way for all of Rhaella’s children to survive the coming crisis. Either Rhaegar would be too proud, or Viserys too stubborn, and one or both would fall to dragonfire. The princess was a summer child, who had never seen the fruits of war. She knew nothing of the finality of death, or of the mind-numbing endlessness of the cycle of violence and revenge that followed it.

Elia sank into the chair in her solar beside Daenerys’s children, and put her head in her hands.

This would be her last plot. She could feel it in her bones.

A whole litany of regrets was at the forefront of her thoughts: she should have spent more time with her own children, she could have done more to help Lyanna Stark, she could have tried harder to make the King love her, that day at Harrenhal.

“I did my best,” she whispered, though she knew not to whom.

Either Rhaella or the gods; in Elia’s mind they were almost the same.

But it was true; she had done all she could, every moment. And all was not lost. The kingdom was at peace, for now. And Rhaella’s children were all alive, and as long as she drew breath, Elia would rise to save them every time.

She stood and moved to the window, to watch the flag of her house flutter in the evening light, the sun and spear, and a motto: unbowed, unbent, unbroken.

Elia smiled.

_If the gods would judge me, then let them._


	4. Daenerys, Jon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Growing up in King's Landing: a flashback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s a choose-your-own-adventure of things that are difficult to write about, including but not limited to: codependent abusive relationships, child POVs, lots of characterization to do in a short amount of time, and more. So this chapter was a labor of love, emphasis on the “labor.” Please be gentle? Thanks for reading.

**Daenerys Targaryen**

The princess was haunted by a dream.

For a long time, the only person she told about the dream was Lyanna Stark.

Queen Lyanna was a good listener, and never interrupted her, or said she was a silly little girl for thinking about her dreams so much. Daenerys went often to the Northern Queen’s chambers, and the Queen received her with gratitude, accepting the little kisses Dany peppered on the older woman’s papery cheeks and hands.

Queen Lyanna was the prettiest lady Dany had ever seen in her life, prettier than Queen Elia, though Dany liked Queen Elia almost as much.

The Dornish Queen had a dignified, imperious beauty that suited her, but Lyanna was in a class all her own. Her eyes were grey and clear as the sky after a summer snow. She had full red lips and a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. And of course, nothing matched her hair, long and dark and unkempt as the mane of Dany’s prize horse.

Dany liked to brush the Queen’s hair, and tell her about her dream, and the Queen liked to listen.

“My mother died when I was born,” Dany told her. “If I had a mother, I’d tell her. But since I don’t, I hope you don’t mind if I tell you.”

“Of course, my princess,” the Queen would say.

“In my dreams, I ride a dragon,” Dany would say, giggling. “Isn’t that silly? My brothers say the dragons are all dead. But I don’t think so. Because I dream about riding a dragon, a big black one.”

But Queen Lyanna would never laugh at her. Her expression was always very considerate and thoughtful.

“Do you think dragons are real, Queen Lyanna?” she would ask.

“No one knows, princess.”

“Well, I think they are real. My dragon is real—he’s such a good dragon, he flies wherever I want him to, even to Essos. He—“

Dany could never quite finish her stories about her dreams, because she could not find the proper words—how could she hope to communicate how _real_ it all felt? How the dragon’s scales chafed at her hands; how she could hear its great heart beating beneath her, and hear the flap of its powerful wings on either side of her—up and down they flapped, rhythmic and sure and strong. And the sights below her and around her!—Dany was dizzy, remembering the color of it all, the small patches of cultivated land like a quilt, and the tiny farms and holdfasts spread out beneath her.

At the end of each dream, as the dragon climbed higher and castles grew even smaller, everything became cold and quiet around her as they touched the clouds— not corporeal as she always thought, but insubstantial as air.

 “What do you think it means, Queen Lyanna?”

Lyanna Stark was not one to answer questions with the first thing that came to mind. So she would sit silently for a while, her chin in her hands thoughtfully, while Dany brushed her hair.

 “It may not mean anything, princess,” she said, finally. “The important thing is what it means to you.”

_In my dreams I own the sky,_ she thought.

Dany looked solemnly at her own and Lyanna’s reflections in the looking-glass.

“What if it means something bad, Queen Lyanna?” she would ask, her throat tightening.

She was almost sure good princesses did not dream about riding dragons, which was why she never told her brothers about her dreams.

“I don’t want to be a bad girl,” said Dany, her lower lip trembling. “My brother says I need to learn my place.”

Lyanna stirred, placing her hands on Dany’s shoulders.

 “Those dreams _are_ your place,” said Lyanna, with sudden fierceness. “Let me tell you, my princess, about something I have never told anyone else.”

Taking the brush from Daenerys, she began to comb Dany’s hair. Each stroke began at the scalp and was gentle all the way down.

“I used to have those dreams too,” she said.

Dany turned curiously. Lyanna smiled.

Turning Dany’s head back to the looking-glass, she continued, “Only in my dreams I was a wolf. I dreamt of running through the forest with my brothers. I could smell everything! It is amazing how little we humans can smell.”

The Queen laughed. “What I would give to have those dreams again.”

“Why did you stop?”

“I don’t know. When I moved South, I… just stopped having them.”

“That’s sad.”

“Perhaps. I do miss them. The only feeling that came close to those dreams, was when I used to compete in tourneys.”

Dany’s eyes were large as eggs. “You were a knight?”

“After a fashion,” she said. Laughing bitterly, she added, “No one would think so, to look at me now.”

Indeed, the tiny Lyanna did not look fit to swing a sword. Nonetheless, her empty hands ran through the formation of grips, and each looked convincing to Dany.

“I was not the best knight,” she said. “But I loved it. I did win once. I called myself the Knight of the Laughing Tree, and did not lift my visor once. The man never knew it was a girl of fifteen who bested him.”

Dany laughed.

“I want to best someone in a tourney, too,” she said.

“You are a royal princess,” she said. “Ser Barristan, who teaches swordplay to my son, is a good man. Ask him if he will teach you as well.”

Dany grinned, excited at the prospect of becoming a knight like Lyanna.

“I shall be the Dragoness-Knight.”

“That you shall be, my princess,” Lyanna said. “Please do ask him. The most important thing a woman can know in this world is how to defend herself, like a man would.”

Dany frowned, thinking of all the times Viserys came to her chambers, at night.

She always wished she was strong enough to push him off.

“I will learn to fight with a sword,” she said. “And I will keep dreaming my dreams.”

“Good girl,” said Lyanna. She turned Daenerys around to face her, and tucked a silver curl behind the girl’s ear.

“Hold your dreams close. And then maybe you won’t make the same mistakes I did.”

A line appeared between Dany’s brows. She always felt a little uncomfortable when Lyanna talked to her like this, but the Queen would not hide her misery from Dany—would not hide anything, really. The Northern Queen was truthful to a fault.

“I still remember the day I saw your brother’s face,” the Queen said. “He was so beautiful. I forgot who I was, who I wanted to be.”

Dany felt a sharp ache in her chest.

“I’m so sorry,” she blurted out. “That my brother is so mean to you.”

The Queen might have smiled, but to Dany it was hardly a smile at all. She smoothed Dany’s hair.

“You are a good person,” she said. “Promise me you will always be so.”

“I promise,” Dany said, trembling.

From then on, whenever she heard unkind whispering about Queen Lyanna, Daenerys thought of wolves.

She’d never seen a direwolf but she could imagine them: lean and hungry, running wild in the northern woods, looking out at the world with eyes that were curiously clear and calm.

**Jon Targaryen**

Each day his mother rose before dawn and visited the godswood to pray.

He went with her sometimes, clutching her hand as she stood beneath the ceiling of sky and sang. He liked to watch her in the godswood. It made his heart lighter. She only ever looked _right_ there among the trees, her brown hair and thin hands like branches and leaves, there, on the only small patch of ground in King’s Landing Lyanna Stark could call her own.

One time, he asked her if she prayed for their release, but she did not. Jon was frustrated at that; there had not been a day of Jon’s life when he hadn’t been a prisoner.

“I pray for _your_ release,” she said, cupping his cheek with her hand. “The King has no reason to keep you here. As soon as I can find a safe path to do so, I will send you to Winterfell. You will be very happy there.”

“But I want to go with you,” Jon said.

 “I am the Queen,” she said. “My absence would be noted. So will yours. But it would take them longer to find you.”

True to her word, his mother tried many times to spirit Jon from King’s Landing, but each attempt ended in failure, and each failure grew more and more dangerous.

The first time she tried to slip him abroad a vessel bound for White Harbor, but the captain recognized her at the dock, and the City Watch was upon them within minutes, steel blades coming within a hair’s breadth of his mother’s neck.

The second attempt almost succeeded. Lyanna negotiated to secure Jon’s passage to Riverrun, and on to Winterfell, with the visiting Tully lords. Years ago, the Tullys had an accord with House Stark, though as stern-faced Lord Hoster reminded them, it was no longer good. The Starks broke their obligation to the Tullys when they wed Cersei Lannister to Lord Eddard instead of their daughter Catelyn.

Still, the Tullys were honorable, and were it not for a surprise inspection of the Tully party leaving King’s Landing, Jon might have escaped.

After that, Jon begged her to lay aside her plans for his escape, for each attempt brought down the wrath of the King upon his mother.

Mighty Rhaegar: the smallfolk adored their King. From Dorne to the Wall, they said he was tall and noble, strikingly handsome, learned, wise, and talented—like a king from a storybook.

Any boy would have been proud to call him Father, but not Jon.

 

\--

 

This was the first memory he had of his father: his parents were arguing.

Jon did not remember what the argument was about, only that the sound of their voices was unpleasant, and he felt very small against it.

He started crying.

Then his mother started screaming at his father. Her voice escalated, louder and louder, until she slapped her husband.

Then—once he’d absorbed the blow—she crumpled against him, wailing one word over and over again. _Sorry. So so sorry._

But his father pushed her away with a blow of his own, far harder and stronger than hers had been. Jon saw bruises bloom on his mother’s pale skin, heard her fall abruptly silent.

But Jon cried louder.

 

\--

 

 

This was the second: his parents were holding hands.

They were all coming back to his mother’s chambers after a feast. Both of them smelled of wine. Jon, about four years old, tagged along behind them.

By the time they reached the chambers, his father was leaning into his mother, her frail form supporting his broad one.

His mother soon put her son to bed, but Jon continued to watch at the crack of the door to his parents’ bedchamber, hypnotized by whatever passed between them.  

His mother was undressing his father. Her hands were rough as she stripped him first of his cape, then his doublet, then his undershirt. Once he was naked to the waist, she kissed the hollow of his throat, each of his collarbones.

“It’s fortunate you are beautiful,” his mother said.  

“You hate me,” his father said, the words slurred and doleful in his mouth.

His mother’s eyes were black and cold in the dim light.

“Consider that you might deserve it.”

His father’s face contorted like he was about to cry.

As Jon watched in astonishment, his father took both of his mother’s hands and held them for a moment, looking up at her face.  

Then he cupped her cheek, his other hand touching her hair, stroking her jaw.

“You know… My father…” he murmured. “I’m not very good at being married.”

 

 

\--

 

 

Whenever he spent time with both parents—somehow he was never alone with Rhaegar, which his mother no doubt ensured—he felt like he was trapped in a small, airless room: his chest tightened and he had to leave.

His father didn’t seem to regret Jon’s absence very much.

As for his mother, Jon knew from an early age that there were two Lyannas.

One belonged to Jon. The gentle mother of the godswood, the one who sang.

The other, two-faced, as ferocious in private as she was demure in public, belonged to his father and no one else.  It was she who bore the weight of Rhaegar’s love.

 

 

\--

 

Sometimes Jon wondered if he also had a sister, in a way—

Daenerys Targaryen, who had come almost to play with Jon almost every day since he was a boy in the cradle.

She was only a year older than him, but seemed much more grown-up than Jon felt.  They both loved dragons, although Dany much more than Jon, so they played at being dragons for many years. Jon, though, loved imagining the North—its snow-capped mountains and deep forests— so he’d concocted a story where he and Dany flew North to battle the wildlings and white walkers he’d heard of from the stories Old Elma, his mother’s maid, told.

It was an exciting story.

Then—like everything else—that was taken from him too.

“I have to leave for a while,” she told him one day. They’d been pretend-jousting, and her hair was sticking to her forehead, and she did not look very princess-like.

“Where are you going?”

“Casterly Rock,” she said. “For a year, my brother says.”

Dany always said _my brother_ instead of _your father_ , for which Jon was grateful.

 “A year?” Jon whacked at a nearby tree. A year was unfathomable.

“Why?”

“To meet with my betrothed,” she said, watching him very carefully.

“Oh.”

Jon didn’t know how he felt about that. Of course Daenerys would eventually get married and move away from him, but he hadn’t expected it to come so soon.

“Are you going to be wed?” he asked.

She laughed.

“Not yet, silly,” she said. “I haven’t flowered yet.”

Still watching Jon closely, she smiled. “Are you jealous?”

Jon wished fervently he had never entered this conversation, but she’d sprung it on him and now there was no way out. Truly, he was more upset than jealous, overwhelmed by the prospect of a whole year without Dany and their dragon-games, but he didn’t want her to think he was only thinking of himself.

“No,” he said at last.

She came toward him and linked her arm with his.

“Good,” she said. “Because I’m going to marry you too.”

“I don’t think that’s allowed,” he said doubtfully.

With the way she was looking at him, he didn’t want to tell Dany how he thought of her as a sister, or remind her she was his aunt.

 “Then I will change it so it’s allowed,” she said, her cheeks flaming with sudden color.

“We are Targaryens,” she said, when Jon looked stupefied. “We make our own rules.”

Then she kissed him on the cheek.

While Jon was sitting in sheer befuddlement, trying to think of what to say, Dany ran away, taking her toy sword with her. A squire brayed with laughter from the adjacent courtyard.

“That’s women, m’lord,” he called out. “Don’t ever think to tell ‘em what they can’t do.”

Jon wanted to sink into the ground.

He gradually forgot his humiliation, though, as the following weeks passed so much more slowly without Dany to fill them.

She really was a good playmate, unlike most girls. Jon found most highborn girls useless. They were always going on about some dress they were sewing, or something equally dull.  But not Dany. Although she loved new dresses and new ways to wear her hair, she also loved to swing a sword, and she was not half bad at it.

For a few years, they both took lessons from Ser Barristan of the Kingsguard, along with Jon’s half-brother Aegon, whom Jon disliked immensely.

While Jon was technically a Prince, everyone—from the lowest beggar to the King himself—knew he was a lesser one. Aegon never missed an opportunity to remind Jon of this, referring to his own mother as “the Queen,” and Lyanna only as “my father’s second wife,” or his “Northern wife.”

Dany insisted Aegon didn’t mean it as a bad thing—it was all factually true—but Jon knew the other boy looked down on him.

Without Dany there to go between them, Jon’s lessons with Ser Barristan became ten times more intense, as Aegon slashed furiously at Jon at every opportunity.

Unwilling to sit back and accept this treatment, Jon always struck back, provoking full-blown fights from the Prince.

Aegon—sweat dripping from his hair—was always the bolder of the two, diving forward and hammering Jon with blows. Heart pounding in his chest, it was all Jon could do to counter him.

Each of these scuffles was broken only by Ser Barristan shouting, “Boys! Boys!” And both of them would recall themselves and behave like princes, as though their mothers’ names had not almost passed their lips a moment before, in the thick of it.

Ser Barristan usually only stopped them when Aegon was winning, Jon noticed.

Still, he didn’t mind the fights as much as he thought he would.

They were good practice, and sometimes they were so exciting Jon would still be thinking about them hours later, imagining each stroke, what he could have done differently. He felt alive with a blade in his hands, and he liked the sound his made as it met Aegon’s, the sight of sunlight flashing gold off their steel swords.

 

 

\--

 

 

When Dany returned, Jon had practiced so much he nearly destroyed in their first lesson together.

Seeing how she had grown—almost a young lady now—Ser Barristan was reluctant to teach her again, but as always, Dany got her way. To test her skills, the knight set her in a mock duel against Jon.

Jon was less apprehensive than he should have been, in retrospect, as he charged at the princess, feinted, and brought down his sword on hers. Half a second later, he’d disarmed her easily, and she gasped as her arm twisted to meet the force of the blow.

Horror flooded him.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, rushing over. “Are you alright?”

She looked more stunned than anything.

“You hurt her!” Aegon said, pointing at Dany furiously, as if Jon could possibly miss what he’d done.

Behind Aegon, Ser Barristan’s face was gravely impassive.

“I’m sorry,” Jon said again.

He felt on the edge of tears as he watched her. Her arm seemed fine, and she could move it, but it looked painful all the same, and Jon was ashamed of himself, for forgetting she might not have progressed as fast as him.

“He didn’t mean to,” Dany said to Aegon, who looked ready to pick up his own sword and hit Jon in the head with the flat of his blade.

“He’s a bit stronger than I remember,” she said. “You must have trained him well, Ser Barristan.”

“Princess,” said Ser Barristan gravely. “These boys are becoming young men, and it will only become harder for you to defeat them. Perhaps it is time to step aside.”

Then there was real alarm on Dany’s face.

“But that isn’t fair!” she exclaimed. “Jon’s a good swordsman. That was a hard blow, anyone would have gone down at that.”

Ser Barristan and Aegon exchanged looks.

“Come, little princess,” Aegon said.

He always called her _little princess_ , but Jon knew Dany didn’t like it when he did that.

“Ser Barristan is right,” the Prince continued, offering her his hand, as if to escort her off the practice fields.

Dany stared at it in distaste.

“Maybe she’s right,” Jon said. “She was caught off guard. She can still spar with us, she’s strong enough.”

Dany shot him a look.

_No, don’t, you’re already in enough trouble._

Indeed he was. Ser Barristan looked like he wanted to see Jon flogged.

“I think you have done quite enough damage to the princess,” the old knight said stiffly.

Indeed he suffered for that blow to Dany—afterwards Ser Barristan let Aegon at Jon, and Jon was spared no mercy as Elia’s Prince rained down blows. Though Aegon didn’t draw any blood, Jon sensed he wanted to.

“This is for striking a royal princess,” Aegon said, pinning Jon to the ground.

Jon could hardly speak to remind Aegon that he himself was a royal prince.

 

\--

 

Afterwards, each step back toward the palace was agony, a memory of a moment during the fight when Aegon forced him to his knees, or flat on his back.

Still, he had to know if Dany was alright, so he went to find her, limping the whole way to her chambers.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, embracing him the moment he opened the door.

“I’m sorry too,” said Jon. He didn’t know what he was sorrier for—for hurting her, or for effectively forbidding her from doing something she loved.

“Did it hurt…?” He took her arm gingerly.

But Dany was all concern for Jon, and waved away his questions about her.  

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Are you and your mother alright? It’s been so long.”

They were in Dany’s chambers, and aside from a maid, he and Dany were alone. This was the first time he’d had any real chance to talk to his friend since she returned from Casterly Rock. It seemed she had much to say.  

“She’s the same as always,” Jon said.

She did not look encouraged by this report. But she didn’t press the issue, for which Jon was grateful. He found it difficult to talk about his mother, sometimes, even with Dany. Knowing Dany, the princess would no doubt visit her later on, if she hadn’t already.

 “You’re quite a good swordsman now, apparently!” Dany said, cutting into his thoughts. She touched her arm, but she was laughing.

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t worry, Jon,” she said. “I’m fine. It is good to get beaten once in a while. Or at least that’s what my brother says when he loses a tourney.”

Jon laughed. He knew which brother she was taking about. While Rhaegar had made his name crowning Jon’s mother at the infamous tourney at Harrenhal, and improved every year since, Dany’s brother Viserys did not exactly light the world on fire as a jouster.

“What about you? Did you like Casterly Rock?” Jon asked, curious.

A small smile formed on Dany’s lips.

“It’s more beautiful than I thought,” she said. “Right on the sea. There are lions on everything, though. It’s funny. Lion gargoyles, lion tapestries. You have to go through a gate called Lion’s Mouth. They even keep lions there. I touched one.”

“You touched a lion?”

“A lioness. She was so beautiful, all golden and sleek. Tyrion was telling me a story of how his sister was so brave she touched one of the lions once, so I had to touch one, too,” she said.

“Tyrion? Is that your betrothed?”

“Yes.”

Jon supposed he ought to know that, but he never heard the name before. He knew the older Lannisters by reputation—Cersei, the woman who’d married his uncle, for one, whom he’d never met. He also knew of Cersei’s twin brother, Ser Jaime, who—though Jon would never admit it—was a fixture in Jon’s fantasies of knightly glory.

The legend of Ser Jaime beguiled Jon the first time he’d heard it. They called Ser Jaime the Kingslayer, because he was the one who put a sword in the back of Mad King Aerys. Though everyone was careful not to say so, popular opinion held that Mad Aerys deserved his nickname.

The Mad King also mistreated his wife, Queen Rhaella, in ways that sounded horribly familiar to Jon.

Jon wondered if Ser Jaime killed Aerys when he found the King threatening Rhaella. He’d imagined the whole scene in his mind many times—the woman, crying in the corner, the King, white-faced and furious, and the Kingslayer, tall, shining, and golden, saving the woman, killing the King. In Jon’s dreams, the King was always a bit fuzzy, but the woman in the corner had his mother’s face.

“Is Tyrion Ser Jaime’s brother?” Jon asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

“The Kingslayer?” Dany asked, making a face. “Why, yes, I suppose he is.”

Jon felt hope alight within him, but Dany punctured it with her next sentence.

“He’s nothing like his brother, though,” she said.

“Oh.”

Jon’s dreams—of a shining golden knight, who would save the suffering Queen—seemed to evaporate.

“How so?” Jon asked.

Dany tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, as if trying to take Jon’s measure.

“He is not a knight,” she said. “And he is a dwarf.”

“A… dwarf?”

“Like anyone else, but smaller.”

“I know what a dwarf is,” said Jon peevishly. He was trying to wrap his mind around the concept of Dany, his Dany, wedding a Lannister who was not Ser Jaime, and who was a _dwarf_ on top of it…

He saw Dany’s jaw set.

“Don’t say you feel sorry for me,” she said. “That’s what everyone else says, and I hate them for saying that.”

“Why?”

“Because the people who say that are all cruel,” she said. “Jon, you would like him.”

Jon did not deny it, because dwarf or not, her betrothed was a Lannister, and between Ser Jaime, the aunt he’d never met in Winterfell, and the few glimpses he’d caught of the impressive-looking Lord Tywin, Jon harbored a powerful curiosity about the Lannisters.

“Fine, then,” he said. “I don’t feel sorry for you.”

“Good.”

 “But you are to wed then,” said Jon.

“I am,” she said. Her face was so serene that he decided not to ask her the question weighing on his mind: whether she still intended to marry him as well as Tyrion.

But Daenerys often thought of queer things and said she was going to do them, only to forget about them an hour later. Perhaps it had been a fancy of hers, nothing more.

 

\----

 

 

In the year that followed, Dany grew more distant, as she retreated into the strange pettiness that enveloped girls when they were about to flower.

Without her, Jon found himself alone and friendless, as the only other children at court were much older or much younger than him, or his half-siblings, whom he wanted nothing to do with.

But one day his attention was drawn by the sight of a huge crowd gathered around a table in a courtyard.

The sound of a distinctive laugh stopped him in his tracks—a shiver ran down his spine the moment he heard it, as if he recognized it from somewhere, though he’d never heard it before in his life.

The huge crowd was explained right away: it was a cyvasse tourney. And there was the Queen Mother, enveloped in purple silks ( _ever more popular than Mother_ , Jon thought with a hint of jealousy, _and she’s never even at court these days_ ), seated at one end of the table.

At the other end of the table, was one of the ugliest boys Jon had ever seen in his life.

Jon knew immediately this was the one who had laughed.

 “This is an unfamiliar situation for you, isn’t it?” the boy was asking the Queen.

Elia Martell smiled indulgently.

“Not as unfamiliar as the one you are about to find yourself in, my young lord of Lannister,” she said, disarming her opponent in one clever move.

The boy gasped theatrically as she tossed away his pawns, but he too had a counterattack ready.

Jon did not care one whit about cyvasse, but even he found it hard to look away from the scene. He had so rarely seen the Queen outside of ceremonial events, and seeing her, so vibrantly alive while his mother wasted away in misery, inflamed something inside of Jon. He found himself rooting for the ugly boy to defeat her.

The boy—

As he drew closer, he could see the boy’s eyes: one black, and one green. As those eyes passed over the crowd behind the Queen’s head—which included Jon, now—Jon felt his stomach do a funny little flip.

_My lord of Lannister_ , the Queen called him.

Jon realized he was looking at Dany’s betrothed.

He felt embarrassed for not knowing immediately, but to be fair, his image of Tyrion was Jaime Lannister, only shorter, and this boy… did not meet that.  

His ugliness did not seem to slow him down any, when—even after he lost—consoling admirers swarmed around him, assuring him that no one stood a chance against the Queen in cyvasse. The Queen herself said much the same, offering to teach him a few of the moves that she’d used to decimate him moments before.

With the Queen’s victory, the intense competition of the cyvasse tourney became another round of the endless socializing that characterized Rhaegar’s court.

_What is it about Southrons_ , Jon wondered, _that makes them flock to each other?_

Whatever it was, Jon knew, as a Northerner, and the son of a union many still considered illegitimate, he did not have it. Jon and his mother were seen as strange and off-putting, and no one at court sat with them at dinner, or offered to play cyvasse with them, or curtsied in the halls when he passed, as was his due as a royal prince.

And true to form, no one noticed when Jon snuck away from the crowd as quietly as he’d come. He chanced one glance backwards—the crowd was dissipating, but Aegon, Rhaenys, and Daenerys had just arrived.

Queen Elia stood over them for a moment, fond as a mother hen.

“I ought to leave the young people to their games,” the Queen said to one of her friends, Ser Arthur Dayne of the Kingsguard, who’d been watching the tourney with the rest.

Winking at Rhaenys, Ser Arthur took the Queen’s arm and they headed off, leaving the four children to each other’s company.

They were a happy, noisy group that was forming: Aegon asking Tyrion about the cyvasse game, Rhaenys blushing furiously at falling under the attention of the handsome Ser Arthur. Daenerys was smiling at them all, but her eyes found Jon, who was already shuffling down the corridor.

For a moment Jon wanted to go to her—seeing an invitation in her eyes, or hoping he saw one—but then Dany’s gaze flickered over him as if she hadn’t even seen him.

 

\--

 

If Jon thought that group forming in the courtyard that day was temporary, he was wrong.

Dany, Tyrion, Aegon, and Rhaenys quickly solidified into a unit—an infamous one, known pranksters all, whose antics were dismissed with a chuckle by the adults and endured by the other children at court.

The group’s primary target was not Jon—he’d seen enough of their pranks to be thankful for this—but rather centered on his half-siblings’ cousin, a vain girl of thirteen named Arianne. In the span of a year, they dyed all her gowns a horrid shade of brown, kidnapped her dog Naerys and dressed her in mail, and then—in a coup de grace—stole her diary and read aloud a particularly damning passage in which the princess enumerated the desirable personal qualities of Dany’s older brother Viserys.

Jon was present for this final event, occurring as it did over a ceremonial dinner.

At first, it amused him to watch Arianne Martell suffer at the hands of Dany and her friends. The princess was a gossip who said awful things about Jon’s mother from time to time.

But even he felt sorry for her when Aegon threatened to show the offending entry to Viserys himself, and Arianne burst into hot, blubbering tears.

He watched Aegon in fascination, wondering whether his half-brother was truly mean or their father had just made him that way.

He was wondering if he should say something when Tyrion Lannister stood up instead.   

 “That’s enough,” the Lannister boy said, with a voice both quiet and firm. 

Aegon looked bewildered, and a little betrayed, but put up no resistance when Tyrion took the book from Aegon’s hands and placed it back in Arianne’s. Arianne sobbed harder, hugging herself and holding her diary close to her chest.

Dany appeared at the girl’s shoulder, and hesitantly began to rub her back, looking reproachfully at Aegon all the while.

Aegon looked to his sister for support, but Rhaenys’s face was a blank page, ceremonious as her royal mother’s.

Tyrion sat back down and poured a glass of wine for Rhaenys, while Dany stood up to fetch some water for Arianne.

Then Aegon became aware of Jon’s eyes on them.

“What are you looking at?” the Prince asked, folding his arms.

“Nothing, Your Grace,” Jon said, quickly averting his gaze.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Lannister boy watching Jon as though he was some new strange beast in a circus.

_But I am not the one that should be in a circus_ , Jon thought, a sudden rage boiling over within him.

Jon faced Aegon.

“Actually, I was looking at your friend,” he said, pointing at Tyrion. “I wanted to see if he’s as ugly as they all say he is.”

 Across from him, the first sound was Arianne Martell’s peal of delighted laughter. 

Neither Rhaenys nor Aegon laughed, but Jon did not see their reactions, as his eyes were locked on the boy he’d just heard himself insult.

To Jon’s surprise, Tyrion’s expression did not become hard, or angry, or cold. Rather, it became softer—the older boy seemed to withdraw into himself for a moment. The only sign he’d heard Jon at all was his small, crooked smile.

Then Aegon made noises of protest, his hands balling into fists. For a moment, Jon was sure the prince was going to fly at him, notwithstanding his and Tyrion’s little spat moments earlier.

“Leave him be,” Tyrion said to Aegon.

Turning to Jon, he said, “Well. I do hope I have met your expectations, my Prince.”

To Jon’s horror, Daenerys chose that moment to return with a cup of water for Arianne.

Dany’s brow knitted, seeing all their faces. “What—?”

Aegon looked ready to spill the whole tale, but before he could do more than sputter, Tyrion said smoothly, “Prince Jon came over to express his concern about Princess Arianne.”

Arianne let out another howl of laughter.

“But we are all fine, now,” Tyrion said, pleasantly, ignoring her.

“Prince Jon. Thank you for your concern,” Dany said, in that stiff way she always talked to Jon in public. But there was something underneath—probably gratitude.

Jon could hardly look at her.

“Princess,” said Jon, acknowledging her. With that, he dismissed himself from their presence. He barely waited until he was out of the group’s line of vision, before running to his chambers as fast as his legs would carry him.  

 

\--

 

Later that night, right before Jon settled into bed, there was a knock on the door: Daenerys had come to visit him, now of all times, after months of her total absence from his life. She was among the last people in Westeros he wanted to see just then, but the princess took his hand so insistently that he had to go with her, to find out wherever it was she was so determined to drag him.

It turned out to be the palace gardens.

Jon felt his mouth go dry, as the way she was looking at him, the pressure of her hands on his, the nearness of their bodies—all of it, her intentions, came together in his mind right at the moment before it happened.

In the gardens, under the stars, with the scent of roses all around them—she kissed him.

It was not a chaste kiss, the sort they’d exchanged as children, butterfly kisses on cheeks or lips. This was a real kiss, the kiss of a woman now flowered. Her tongue startled him with its gentle pressure on his lips, and he found himself yielding to her.

His eyes were trained on a spot just behind the dragon princess, where a blue rose grew from a chink in the wall.

He broke off the kiss.

“What are you doing?” he said. His throat was so dry it came out in a whisper.

 “Thanking you,” she said, whispering too. “For what you did today for Arianne.”

Jon felt a wave of hot shame sweep through him. The more he studied that blue rose behind her, the more ashamed he became. He could not look her in the eye.

“I know she is awful to you sometimes,” Dany went on. “And Aegon is too. That was so brave of you.”

Jon could not speak.

“Putting Naerys in mail didn’t hurt anyone, and it only made Arianne panic for a moment,” Dany said, shaking her head. “But then Aegon dyed those gowns she loves so much, and stole her diary. He’d gone too far.”

 “I hope you will forgive me,” she said, looking troubled. “I haven’t been avoiding you on purpose. My brother told me we shouldn’t spend so much time together, since I am betrothed.”

“It’s alright,” Jon said.

He began to move away from her.

Dany bit her lip.

“Please don’t hate me, Jon,” she said. “I swear to you, I have not forgotten you.”

“Maybe it would be better if you did,” said Jon, pushing his way past her.

She did not follow him, or if she did, Jon wouldn’t have paid her any mind, he just didn’t want to look at her stupid face anymore, _thanking_ him of all things, _kissing him_ —

Slamming the door, Jon lay on his bed, his mind spinning.

_I kissed her, I kissed her, I kissed her._

Well, she kissed him first, but that was beside the point.

His whole body felt flooded with guilt.  

_Why did you lie for me?_ he thought, before resuming the continuous loop of, _I kissed her, I kissed her, I kissed her._

He couldn’t sleep for a long time, with those two thoughts chasing each other around his increasingly tired brain, but eventually sleep claimed him, and when he slept, he dreamed.

He dreamed his old dream, the one about Ser Jaime rescuing his mother. But when Ser Jaime turned around, he had Tyrion’s face, wearing the expression he’d worn the moment after Jon insulted him, that same small smile.

 


	5. Lyanna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a shame no one asks Helen of Troy about the Trojan War.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, so sorry about the delay! Also sorry that this chapter is a little shorter than usual-- either I had to split it up, or throw 7.5 K at you in a single chapter, and there are limits to your patience, I am sure. I'm just very sorry in general. I promise I will have Part II up by the end of the week. Thanks for reading!

**Lyanna Stark**

 

Lyanna never thought she was easily swayed by ceremony or spectacle.

The North was honest; it was good. And Lyanna was of the North. She’d never learned to lie or dissimulate or manipulate. For a long time, the only enemies she knew of were those a girl could swing a sword at.

She’d been unprepared for the Crown Prince, the harpist with his silver hair and Southron lies. She remembered the day she’d laid eyes on him as though it were yesterday.

This was the biggest mistake Lyanna Stark ever made: intrigued, she thought she saw an echo of the North in the proud line of the Prince’s jaw.

But she thought wrong. 

 

\--

 

Lyanna was fifteen years old.

From across the practice yard, he’d seemed different from other men, immaculate, cool and remote and beautiful as a snow-capped mountain.

But up close, he burned with the ferocious heat of a dragon. _Fire and ice._

She could barely remember what they talked about, that first night—how he’d admired her performance as Knight of the Laughing Tree, perhaps? He knew her secret. He seemed the sort of man who knew everyone’s secrets.

“You’re different from other women, aren’t you,” said Prince Rhaegar. His eyes looked at her and did not find her wanting.

She was frightened as he approached her—thinking to herself, _no, not this, I’m not like them, not one of those silly girls—_ and as he laid a cool finger on her cheek, along her jaw. He whispered in her ear. His breath was hot and his teeth were sharp and he enunciated everything he said.

He told her she was beautiful.

Little, mud-covered, sword-wielding Lyanna, Knight of the Laughing Tree—in all her life, she had never been told she was even pretty. From birth, it was always, _You look like a boy. What fine sons you have, Lord Stark. Shame she doesn’t take after her lady mother_. The laughter. For a time Lyanna had wanted to run away and join House Mormont, where she could be ugly and boyish in peace.

But then Rhaegar—this beautiful, terrific dragon prince—told her she was beautiful.

“Are you mad?” she remembered asking him.

“Only for you,” he said, and kissed her, and oh, it had felt like her whole body was on fire.

 

\--

 

She was a girl, and only a girl.

When Rhaegar laid the crown of roses in her lap she felt her head swim as thousands of eyes turned toward her, hundreds of faces looking upon her with judgment and disdain.

The blood rushed to her head—Brandon was touching her arm, Ned was frowning deeply.

And before her there was Rhaegar, Rhaegar, Rhaegar—who was very much married, and who had just committed a great folly.

She stood up abruptly.

_No, not this, I’m not the girl you all think I am._

 

\--

 

But when she saw Rhaegar afterward, they sat quietly together, and he told her he was sorry and laid his head in her lap and let her play with his hair.

It was different, something Robert Baratheon would never have done. How easily he surrendered to her, as if falling for her was natural, inevitable as breathing.

And he was a dragon, and dragons never surrendered.

For the first time in her life, Lyanna was in awe of her own power.

Then she thought—

_Perhaps I am the girl they all think I am._

_And perhaps that’s not a bad thing._

When he came, she went with him willingly.

 

\--

 

How strange it had been, to be locked in that tower in Dorne.

Even now, she could still see the view out that round little window, with the red, arid peaks that looked like they’d been touched by the fingers of gods.

She felt at one with those mountains, for she too felt she’d been touched by a god, and made new and different. Even after he left to put down her foul former fiancé’s rebellion, she felt his presence as though he were still there. He was a wrinkle in the bed linens, a scent, a flickering flame in the hearth, the clanking of Ser Arthur Dayne in his armor outside the door.

 _I love the Prince_ , she thought.

In the songs and stories she’d loved since she was a little girl, love solved everything. It fixed everything. She felt like Jenny of Oldstones, a peasant girl beside him, picked up from the drab North and set into the whirlwind of the Prince’s life, but even then she knew Rhaegar was not Duncan, and would never give up a crown for her.

She wanted to think so, though, as she lay on the bed and held her hands over her belly and realized there was a child growing in there.

Even before she lost her moon blood she knew she’d conceived.

She was younger than she ever thought she’d be when she became a mother, but found she was ready for the babe, and excited.

She knew she ought to be thinking about the war—all those brave men marching—but it was so hard when she was in love and carrying a child, and she could almost see her child’s face. How lovely she would be.

But then a raven came from the capital.

Mad Aerys had murdered her father and brother.

Everything changed after that.

 

\--

 

She woke up the next morning as if nothing had happened, went to wash her face, and as she felt the cold water, she remembered, and started to cry.  

 

\--

 

As her pregnancy progressed and she heard word of the fighting—the North had risen beside Robert Baratheon against the Prince—she grew ill.

When they told her what Aerys did to Father and Brandon she went to the privy and threw up.

Her blood was pounding in her veins, and she was very pale, and the maester told her she was ill and might lose the child.

“I am not ill,” she screamed as they tried to force her to drink some potion or another.

Feeling crazed, she started screaming Brandon’s name.

The men of the Kingsguard held her down, their armor no match for her bare flesh. She drank with tears running down her face, almost gagging.

She was terrified it was tansy root.

But it was just sweetsleep.

They didn’t want her running away.

 

\--

 

“My brother will kill you for this,” she told Ser Oswell Whent, her least favorite of her Kingsguard ‘companions.’

“Brandon’s dead, sweetling,” he sang back to her.

“My other brother.”

“The quiet one?” Ser Oswell was laughing.

“Yes. Ned. Eddard. He’s coming for me. You’ll see.”

 

\--

 

Perhaps the Targaryens didn’t take the child from her, but they took everything else.

Lyanna had never been close to her father—stern, conventional Lord Rickard had been the first to forbid Lyanna’s interest in swordplay—but her brother—her big brother!

Brandon simply _couldn’t_ die.

Young and fair-haired, he was going to wed some nice girl from the Riverlands. She remembered japing with him over dinner, declaring his bride was quite fortunate, since Brandon had already bedded a large part of the female population of the North.

Who would wed that girl now that he was gone?

Catelyn Tully, who had loved him so much?

She did not sleep for fear of dreaming of her brother’s face, but she saw it anyway, rising before her in the dark: bearded, boyish even at twenty-five, with an easy grin and a tankard of ale ever set before him. That was Brandon.

And never would be, again.

 

\--

 

They’d always had a certain understanding.

They were the raucous siblings, the wild ones, _the wolf blood._ Father disapproved of them both, preferring quiet, rule-abiding Ned and Benjen.

But when had that ever mattered, when Lyanna had Brandon, and Brandon had Lyanna, and they both had Winterfell? Her brother was a dashing knight, and she was to be a warrior lady, and they were going to have adventures.

_Let me be your forest lad, and I’ll be your forest lass._

 

\--

 

 

“They killed Robert Baratheon at the Trident, my lady,” Ser Barristan told her.

When he came in to tell her, it was the still of the afternoon and a fly was buzzing somewhere in the little room in her tower. Lyanna was lying in the dark with the curtains drawn against the light and heat of Dorne, feeling the child kick in her stomach.

She said nothing. Once that news would have set off sparks—joy and grief both—but Brandon’s loss had gutted her, and she had nothing left to say.

Robert Baratheon belonged to another life, the one she’d had before Rhaegar.

“The Lannisters are marching on the capital,” said Ser Barristan.

And Lyanna cared even less about that.

“Leave me alone,” she said.

The old knight grimaced, but pulled the door shut behind him.

 

\--

 

The next morning, the maids packed up her things, telling her they were headed to King’s Landing.

No one would tell her what was going on, so Lyanna let them pack while she laid in bed and tried not to vomit. No one had warned her of the discomforts of carrying a child, and at some moments, Lyanna frankly would have preferred to suffer a wound in a tourney than the restless child in her belly.

Her ladies-in-waiting escorted her to the bottom of the tower, where the men of the Kingsguard were all lined up and looking at Lyanna oddly.

All were red and sweaty, cooking in their armor under the Dornish sun, and it occurred to her just then how silly they looked, like overgrown boys at play.

 _There has been some new tragedy,_ she thought wildly as she saw their apprehensive faces.

_What if—_

 “What? What is it?” she asked.

“The King has need of you,” said Ser Arthur Dayne.

_The King._

Her heart pounded in her throat.

“Aerys?” she asked.

Ser Arthur Dayne shook his head.

“The King is dead, my lady,” he said, softly. “Long live the King.”

 

\--

 

All throughout the voyage, Lyanna was seasick, but beneath that, she felt a kind of relief. It felt like her body was purging itself, and the toxic anger that threatened to consume her when they told her Brandon was dead, was leaving her, little by little.

_Aerys is dead._

Lyanna wondered if it was Ned who had killed him.

Perhaps that was why no one seemed to want to talk to her or look at her.

Her dutiful brother, a kingslayer. It almost made her laugh.

But who else could it be?

As she heaved over the side of the ship, she imagined how death came for Aerys. She saw Brandon’s face in the blue sky above her, and she saw Ned drawing his sword on Aerys in the ocean below. The waves looked like guts spilling out of the Mad King, roiling and slippery.

 _Cut them out,_ she thought madly. _Cut them out and feed them to the wolves._

She collapsed on the deck, sobbing.

 

\--

 

But when they got to King’s Landing, the banners were all red and gold.

The air was hot with wildfire.

There were jars and jars of it lined up around the peripheral wall, looming over them as her party passed into the city.

The city, which looked a tinderbox about to explode.

 “We are walking into a war,” Lyanna said to one of her maids.

Her ladies in waiting exchanged glances. Her maids were Meila, a robust, sunburnt girl of her age, and Elma, a lean, older woman with greying hair, and they were good women both.

“Not if Lord Tywin knows what’s good for him,” said Elma.

“So they have raised the West then. Why?” Lyanna said distantly, looking out at the smallfolk from her palanquin. They glared up at her in return, with hostile stares.

Across from her, the maids looked at each other again.

“Don’t you know?”

“I know nothing,” said Lyanna. “Remember? I was kidnapped and now I am carrying a child. That’s all I’m fit for these days, apparently.”

She folded her arms. Elma touched her ward’s shoulder, gently.

 “Jaime Lannister killed the Mad King,” the old maid said.

“ _Ser_ Jaime, of the Kingsguard? But what about my brother?”

“Defeated with the rest,” Elma said, again so very gently. “He retreated, as like to save your life, child.”

Lyanna’s mouth went dry. So it appeared she was to be all alone in the city, with half of her family branded traitors and the other half dead.

Still, Ned was alive, and out of harm’s way now, and presumably Benjen as well, and that was something.

“What’s to become of Ser Jaime?” she asked.

“Take his head, probably,” said Meila, looking forlorn. “Shame, such a pretty head.”

“Mother have mercy,” Lyanna murmured.

 

\--

 

That night as Lyanna installed herself in the palace, she heard strains of music from the street.

Propping her window open—it was insufferably hot anyway—she heard more of it. The smallfolk were singing.

Lyanna realized she knew the song.

It was “Rains of Castamere.”

She closed her window.

 

\--

 

The morning brought news of riots.

 

\--

 

When Lyanna was presented to Rhaegar that day, the King was screaming at some member of his Small Council—the eunuch, Lyanna would have guessed—and at first, he did not see her standing there.

He was manic, pacing the floors of his solar and tearing his hair, his face red, his features twisted in rage.

Then he saw her.

 “Lyanna,” he breathed.

His whole demeanor shifted in an instant. His face paled and his features composed themselves, his long silver hair seemed to fly back into place.

He threw his arms around her and pulled her so tightly to him she could barely breathe.

“My wolf girl,” he said, his hands resting on her upper arms.

He stood back for a moment to appraise her swollen belly, her pretty face. Then he leaned back in.

“This is wonderful,” he whispered in her ear.

His hands snaked down her body, landing on her belly.

“Our babe. Visenya,” he said, smiling.

Lyanna couldn’t find anything to say; the Prince—now the King— was overwhelming in his reality. For so long Rhaegar had been her wish, her dream, then he had entered her nightmares.

How odd, to see him in the flesh again, still standing after an entire kingdom had risen against him.

Still breathing when so many were dead.

She did not know what she was expecting—some sense of contrition, perhaps, an appropriate gravity for the suffering he’d inflicted on her, and on everyone. But all that was thoroughly missing from his face. Instead, he was looking at her with lust in his eyes, the way he’d looked at the girl at the tourney at Harrenhal, but all he was seeing was a ghost.

Lyanna was not that girl anymore.

“Your Grace,” she said, curtseying.

He quirked his eyebrow at her. “So formal,” he said.

“I’m told I’m talking to a King now,” Lyanna said, attempting a smile.

“That you are,” Rhaegar said, with a tight smile of his own. “Though it seems there is no end to traitors these days.”

 “Yes, Your Grace,” she said.

There was a strange light in Rhaegar’s violet eyes. Almost daring her to defy him.

Then he smiled.

He brushed her hair back from her face.

“I am so happy to see you,” he said. “You are safe now. Our Visenya is safe.”

“Visenya? Are you sure it’s a girl?”

“There is a prophecy, my sweet Lyanna,” said Rhaegar, wagging a finger at her. “The prince who was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.”

Lyanna was watching Rhaegar’s face very carefully. There was an odd look in his eyes again, that strange violet light. Once she would have thought it made him look more handsome, but now it only frightened her.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

 “I’ll explain it all to you, in time,” he said. “When our girl is born.”

“Perhaps you’ll explain it me now.”

He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. “What was that?”

 “If it would please you to explain it,” Lyanna said, making her tone as sweet as she could. “I should like to know more.”

Rhaegar smiled again. The smile was something new, Lyanna did not remember it being there before. When she met him, Rhaegar carried a strange wistfulness—a weight almost like sadness— one of those things that first drew her to him.  But that was gone now, and in its place was this strange, reflexive smile.

There was no humor or cheer in it. Nor was it threatening, although Lyanna suspected it was intended that way, a dragon baring its teeth.

If anything, it was markedly bland. Caused by nothing and signifying nothing, it was meaningless.

 _A madman’s smile,_ Lyanna realized.

“Since you asked so nicely,” Rhaegar said. “I will tell you. But you must promise not to let it upset you. You are with child, after all.”

Lyanna said nothing, but felt a flicker of annoyance.

“Some score years ago,” he began. “Jenny of Oldstones brought a woods witch to my grandfather’s court.”

 “This woods witch brought ill tidings, as her sort generally tends to do. However, her warning was so dire it merited our attention —after all, my own House owes its existence to heeding warnings, does it not?”

Lyanna nodded dutifully.

“In any case, this woman talked of a prophecy that predicted a certain event—not unlike the Doom of Valyria—of catastrophic misery. Winter. An endless winter, worse than all winters before it. Something you may know a little about.”

As a matter of fact, Lyanna’s only experience was with average winters—and in all the annals of House Stark, she could not remember any particular winter being described as worse than all winters—but she let him talk, supposing that to a Southron all winters were terrible.

“So, since we hope to avoid the worst of this… second Doom… the prophecy predicts a savior. The prince who was promised. This woods witch commanded my grandfather to wed my father and mother, assured him the Prince who was promised would spawn from our line.”

Rhaegar smiled, as if pleased with himself.

“There you have it,” he said. “As a child, I confess I thought I was the prince the prophecy referred to… ah, the arrogance! So I tried to become everything I could be—scholar and warrior, prince and potentially, savior. I could still be the prince the prophecy is referring to, but now that I have studied the prophecy I doubt it. We are in high summer, after all.”

Rhaegar paused.

“However, Aegon and Rhaenys both fit the timing perfectly. And I believe the prince could refer to either one person, or three people, presented as one unified whole.”

He waved a careless hand. “The grammar is unclear.”

Lyanna’s mind was working, making the connections between the prophecy and Rhaegar’s actions. “Aegon,” she said, slowly. “Aegon, Rhaenys… and Visenya.”

Lyanna was horror-struck. “You just needed Visenya.”

“You understand why, of course,” he said. “It is difficult to interpret a prophecy, you never know how literal you ought to be. But I have only two children, of fire and Dornish sunshine, and I am unlikely to have any more of their kind. And ‘his is the song of ice and fire,’ the prophecy concludes.”

“But you had no ice,” said Lyanna. She bit down on her tongue until it bled, willing herself not to show the sense of humiliation building inside her.

“All this was for a prophecy,” she said. “You did this for a prophecy…”

Rhaegar touched her hair. “Not all of it,” he insisted.

She wanted to slap him.

“You took me from my family,” she cried. “You started a war. For _that_.”

 “I did not take you from your family,” Rhaegar hissed. “You _went_ with me. You had a choice. I never forced you to do anything. And I will not have it said that I did. If this—any of it—is unsatisfactory to you, you have only yourself to blame.”

Lyanna looked up at him. Rhaegar Targaryen was so tall and strong and handsome, but underneath all that, he was something else entirely. Something she wasn’t sure she liked very much.

And yet—he was _right._

“Did you even love me?” she asked, hating how small and girlish her voice sounded, how weak.

It was ridiculous—utterly ridiculous—that she still cared about that, after everything that had happened.

But she did.

Rhaegar closed his eyes.

“Of course I did. You were different. I meant what I said.”

Lyanna could feel herself trembling as he took her in his arms and kissed her hair. With one hand he rubbed her back, and she tried to relax into it, but found she could not, thinking, dazed, _A prophecy… all this for a prophecy…_

But he smelled so good, and his arms were strong as they held her, that for a moment she allowed herself to pretend.

_Soon Rhaegar shall have his Visenya, and he shall be happy. And I shall have my brothers in Winterfell, and I shall be happy with that, and perhaps, one day we can forget all this. We will all forget._


	6. Lyanna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One birth, one wedding, and one death (or is it two?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may recall, this chapter is the second half of Lyanna's narrative from chapter five. It's the last flashback chapter for a while, which we are all glad about, but which I am especially glad about. Warning: there is a bit of gore in this chapter as well as a major character death.

 

“Wake up, m'lady,” a voice said.

It was two days later.

Both Rhaegar and Lyanna seemed to have made some kind of tacit agreement not to discuss Brandon—or anything remotely related to Brandon—and so the past two days had passed in a haze of Rhaegar’s body and summer heat.

Although the maesters cautioned her about lying with a man while she was with child, Lyanna personally thought that was codswallop—or so she told herself as she and Rhaegar reacquainted themselves. It was worth the risk. For whole hours at a time, it was like nothing had changed. It might have been those first few days at the Tower of Joy.

_Like I am Jenny of Oldstones, and he is my Prince, and he wound flowers in my hair._

Lyanna winced. Thinking of that song brought to mind Winterfell again.

Everything she did not want to think about.

Fortunately her maid, Old Elma, would not give her time to. It was time to wake up, and Rhaegar had long since risen. Without his warmth beside her, she couldn’t sleep.

“What is it?” she asked, annoyed all the same. “Is it a court session?  I am with child.”

“The King requested your presence.”

“The King could have my presence, if he stayed in bed,” Lyanna muttered, but she dressed all the same.

“Not the grey dress,” Elma said, laying a hand on her wrist. “The red and black. M’lady will want to look like a Targaryen today.”

She frowned but did as she was told.

Then Elma led her not to Rhaegar’s solar, nor to the court room, but outside, to the steps of the Red Keep.

Lyanna’s frown deepened all the while. She could hear the murmur of a large crowd, and she knew in her heart what she was about to witness.

She wanted nothing more to turn back and hide in her bed.

Then, surreal as a vision, she saw a sight in the corridor that only intensified that desire.

It seemed Lyanna was not the only one at court forced to attend the execution today; so were two white cloaks. Lyanna had no idea of their names, because they looked like upjumped sellswords to her.

The only thing remarkable about the white cloaks was the girl they were escorting—no, dragging—who was easily the most beautiful girl Lyanna had ever seen in her life.

Lyanna stopped and stared.

Clad all in white, like the Maiden, the girl was tall and slender, with long golden curls.

But that was not what fascinated Lyanna so. What fascinated her was how hard she was fighting to escape her captors’ grasp, kicking and pulling like a beast evading a hunt.

All intent focused on escaping, she seemed unaware of the bruises that were probably forming on her arms, or of the way the white cloaks’ mail was catching and ripping out her golden hair in long strands.

She was such a holy terror the white cloaks—both huge, armed men—were close to losing her at several points, which was ridiculous because they were enormous and carried swords and this girl was small and her skin was milky white and her golden hair looked so soft to touch.

But Lyanna saw: underneath, there was nothing soft about this girl.

“Stop,” she cried out. The white cloaks didn’t look up—trying to keep this girl contained was a task that required concentration—but the girl did, and as soon as she did, Lyanna’s suspicions were confirmed.

_Cersei Lannister._

She’d met her once, at a tourney, and never liked her very much, but that seemed immaterial now.

“What, do you think you’re going to help me?” the girl said, incredulous. “I know who you are.”

The guards re-asserted control, but Cersei elbowed them—less of an escape attempt this time, and more of a statement.

“You couldn’t even help yourself,” the girl said, as the white cloaks pushed her forward. “I will not cringe for you.”

Lyanna bit her lip. That remark shouldn’t have hurt—after all, she’d never liked Cersei, and the other girl, not Lyanna, was the one being carried forward by two white cloaks to her brother’s execution—but somehow it did.

Outside, the crowd was decked in red and gold, festive as a feast, but the atmosphere was murderous.

Lyanna took an involuntary step back as she stepped out to face the crowds beside Rhaegar and the rest.

She’d never seen so many unfriendly faces, not even when Rhaegar laid the flowers in her lap and proclaimed her queen of love and beauty before all the noble houses of the realm and his lawful wife.

His lawful wife, who was a mere few feet from Lyanna now.

It was strange to admit, considering the fact that they were both wedded and bedded to the same man, but Lyanna rarely thought of Elia Martell.

It was especially strange considering the singers of the realm seemed to have pitted them against each other, despite the fact that they’d never so much as spoken to each other. Up until now, Lyanna had never seen her but from a distance. 

But now Lyanna couldn’t take her eyes off the other Queen. Even dressed in Targaryen red and black, she was unshakably Dornish. She was pretty, prettier than the singers made her out to be— and serenely composed, as a Queen should be, but there was an impish cast to her features, as though there might be some great, mischievous intelligence hiding behind those dark eyes.

Eyes that, Lyanna noticed, that did not look at her husband’s other wife with any particular warmth.

Or any warmth at all.

Lyanna looked down. She’d been foolish to expect help from that quarter, she supposed. But she had always heard of Elia’s virtues.

But it appeared she would never be the recipient of them. 

_Nor should I be._

Elia’s own children were nowhere to be found— _good,_ thought Lyanna, _babes do not belong here_ —but there was a little boy clinging to her skirts, about seven or eight and clearly miserable.

Lyanna smiled at Rhaegar’s brother, who only stared at her noncommittally in return. He was a lovely boy, with clear Targaryen features, though he was very small and thin for his age, and he clung to Elia as if she was the Mother herself.

Elia calmly accepted his attentions, and smoothed his hair with an open palm whenever he fussed, which was often.

Lyanna felt a bit like fussing herself.

Trumpets sounded, and the crowd quieted, but continued to buzz, a swell like hundreds of angry bees. White and gold cloaks rimmed the perimeters of the square. Quite a few smallfolk spit at their feet. The red and gold throng—if possible—multiplied, as the crowd flew more Lannister banners. These were a form of protest as well, if a silent and orderly one.

Yet Lyanna would have almost preferred open rebellion over this muted and tense display of colors. The worst was the faces of the men who carried the banners.

There was a look in those faces, and it was proud and terrible, and it left Lyanna cold.  

The little prince piped up beside her.

“Did you know they sent five hundred men to Casterly Rock?” said the boy.

“I did not know that,” Lyanna said, humoring him.

“It’s true,” the boy insisted. “If Lord Tywin revolts today they will enter the castle and kill his heir and take his gold.”

“His heir?” Lyanna did not know Lord Tywin had other children besides the famed Lannister twins.

“The little one,” said the prince. “The monster.”

Lyanna shook her head, sure the prince was wrong, but unwilling to debate with a child.

“Hey nonny hey, how many Lannisters die today?” the prince sang, before sucking his thumb.

Elia gently removed the thumb from his mouth.

“I do not want to hear you sing that again,” the Queen said, taking his chin in her hand and forcing him to look her in the eye.

“But why?” the boy whined. “They’re traitors.”

“Only the Kingslayer, and he is to die today,” said Elia fiercely. “Remember to show your respect.”

As she spoke, they brought out the Kingslayer himself. As he approached Lyanna could see—with shock—they’d already hacked off his sword hand, the hand that slew the king, not content to wait for the beheading.

The boy was nearly as beautiful as his sister, but struggled much less. In fact, it looked as if all fight had gone out of him—he stared at the ground as the Kingsguard, his former brothers all of them, led him forward in chains.

Next they brought out his sister, who was weeping openly, her hair in disarray, her dress torn for all to see.

Finally—drawing a great outraged roar from the crowd that was nearly deafening—they brought out Lord Tywin in chains.

Lyanna had never seen a man like Lord Tywin.

Lean and strong, somehow dignified even in his chains, he looked up at the royal party with such black hatred that even Lyanna quailed under his gaze. His eyes were supposed to be green but they looked almost lemon yellow in daylight, pure and intense.

With that the King entered the plaza, dressed all in black.

 “House Lannister,” Rhaegar intoned.

The crowd couldn’t decide whether to look at Rhaegar or Tywin—both were equally hypnotic in their power—and their attention shifted uneasily, leading to murmurs and muffled shouts.

“They have always been friends of the crown,” said Rhaegar, looking to Tywin.

Lyanna flinched. She did not understand how Rhaegar was impervious to the way Tywin was looking at him—she half-expected him to burst into flames—but somehow he was.

“It grieves me to see this day,” said Rhaegar.

Lyanna smiled at his words, so carefully chosen. Indeed, he was dressed all in black, like a mourner.

But Lord Tywin wore his bright house colors, and put the twins in white. Rhaegar’s choice looked all the more ridiculous by comparison.

Not that that seemed to bother Rhaegar.

“Which is why I would like to view this day as a renewal of the bond between our ancient houses,” he went on. “Not as a separation. We can all agree that kingslaying is the height of treason, one which deserves the highest of punishments. But I do not intend to inflict any more than what is deserved.”

Tywin looked ready to spit on Rhaegar’s boots, and Lyanna couldn’t blame him.

Her gaze fell on the Kingslayer. 

The boy was only a few years older than her.

She did not understand it—this was not her house or her family—but when he looked up and met her gaze, the look in his eyes caused an ache in her chest.

_He is about to die_ , Lyanna thought, with a calm, detached feeling.

But there was still that sticking pain between her ribs.

_He looks like Brandon_ , she thought then, and tears came fast and sudden to the corners of her eyes.

And he did. There was the same fair hair, the same lips that laughed so easily, the light, easy manner.

_If he were to live I would fall in love with him, just for that._

_I might be in love with him now._

It was a foolish thought, a girlish one, but as the Kingslayer looked away she felt as if she really had loved him just for that moment. She wondered if he’d ever imagined life would turn out this way.

The gods knew she hadn’t.

Ser Jaime’s attention was now turned back to his sister, and they were staring at each other with mute, dumb, mutual horror, as if neither could believe this was all really happening.

_At least I didn’t have to watch when Brandon died_ , Lyanna thought. It was a numb feeling.

Both Lannister twins lost their youth for a moment, seeming to age twenty years apiece as they looked at each other, about to be separated forever. She felt she was intruding on something private as the twins continued to watch each other with those stricken faces, but even when she looked away, they burned like bright spots on the edge of her vision.

“I love you,” said the girl twin. “I love you. I love you.”

Lyanna’s head was filled with visions of Brandon.

_I wasn’t there to watch you die_. _I wasn’t there to save you._

Finally, the executioner came forward with the sword. The sunlight glinted gold off the blade—that was the way she’d always remember it—sunlight on steel.

Cersei Lannister’s face was solemn and passive for the first time all day as she watched the blade.

The executioner held the blade over the Kingslayer’s head.

“Any last words?” he asked, quietly, so the crowd wouldn’t hear.

“Yeah,” said the boy. “Go to hell.”

 The blade swung down.

There was a snap as Jaime’s neck broke. From Cersei, a blood-curdling wail.

It made Lyanna’s hair stand on end.

Cersei Lannister was screaming, the Kingsguard trying to restrain her, as she cried, repeating the same words over and over, “Kill me too. Kill me too. Kill me too.” She fell to her knees, half-screaming.

Then her father appeared behind her.

He put his arms around her, chains and all, and pulled her along with him and the guards that were holding them both captive.

Despite everything, the shock registered on Cersei’s face.

It wasn’t affection, exactly, this gesture of her father’s—one could hardly be soft or affectionate trying to pull someone off the ground with both hands tied together. He might have even been hurting her.

Yet with both Tywin and Cersei’s eyes trained on the ground in front of them, at Jaime Lannister's severed head, Lyanna had a visceral sense of oneness. There was no division between Tywin, Cersei, and the body of that boy in front of them—it was all the same, they were as one, the same blood.

Were it not for her father’s iron fingers pulling her through the crowd, Lyanna felt Cersei might have fallen on a sword somewhere within minutes.

But Lord Tywin never loosened his grip on his daughter.

 

\--

 

The day before she gave birth was as hot, still, silent as her time in the Tower of Joy. Lyanna sat with swelling feet propped up on a chaise, on the only tolerable spot in the Red Keep: a balcony overlooking the ocean.

It was beautiful, but the babe was heavy in her stomach, her head ached constantly, and she was sweating out of every orifice like a pig.

_Rhaegar must barely stand to look at me._

That wasn’t quite true—if anything he was more doting that she expected, constantly enquiring after her health.

That day he joined her on the deck, both of them baking in the heat and listening to the waves break on the short, dark-sand beaches of Blackwater Bay. Beneath the sun, Rhaegar, with his pale skin and hair, burned brightly as a god.

“The maester says you’ve had a difficult pregnancy. Can I get you anything?”

Lyanna raised a hand against the sun. “You can let me go home.”

“My love,” said Rhaegar. “You _are_ home.”

 

\--

 

That night he wed her in the Sept of Baelor, before the High Septon and her ladies-in-waiting as witnesses.

It had quite escaped Lyanna’s mind that they weren’t legally wed, considering they’d lain together as man and wife so frequently in those days.

With a cloak draped unceremoniously over her shoulders, and a few words Lyanna intoned with numb lips and dry eyes, she was married.

“Congratulations, Your Grace,” said her maid, Old Elma, after the wedding.

Brow furrowed, Lyanna turned to glance behind her.

“I meant you,” said Old Elma. “You’re Queen now, Your Grace.”

“Why yes,” said Lyanna, dizzy. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

 

\--

 

It was that thought that accompanied her that night as she went to sleep. Rhaegar did not join her. He was working in his solar, leaving Lyanna alone in their bedroom, where she curled up under the sheets as tightly as a cat in winter.

The wedding ceremony had left her feeling strange. Up until that moment—or perhaps, up until the moment Jaime Lannister’s blood pooled on the steps of the Red Keep—everything seemed reversible somehow. Like she could send a raven to Brandon and her brothers would come to King’s Landing and afterwards they’d all agree she’d had a nice holiday but it was time to go home.

But that could never happen now.

As she lay there, there was a sharp pain in her belly but she ignored it. Worse was another feeling, nameless one that filled her whole body, like a white blank fog. It numbed her fingers and feet.

_This is my life now. I am a queen._

She did not blame her child for any of it, but she did blame herself: herself, as she’d been at fifteen, not so very far from childhood then, and intoxicated by a pair of violet eyes in a training yard.

Foolishly so. 

Why was it that women’s lives were the ones ruined by desire, and never men’s? Men just carried on, their virtue unquestioned, their reputation evergreen. Immune, to whether or not half the kingdom thought their new wife was a whore.

 (“I know who you are.” Hadn’t Cersei Lannister told her?)

(And once Lyanna had thought herself above Lady Cersei, and every other lady like her.)

She closed her eyes and prayed, for the first time, that her child would be a boy.

It was the last conscious thought she had for a long time.

 

\--

 

Her memories of the few hours that followed were hazy and dark. She remembered rushing maesters, their urgent voices, a gutting pain in her belly.

The child was coming, surely. But something was wrong.

She felt cold.

 

\--

 

When she woke up she thought she was in Winterfell.

It wasn’t an illogical conclusion, since she was shivering and wrapped in furs, but she was covered in sweat and her body ached all over.

She could sense someone in the room with her, though she did not open her eyes just yet. “What—”

The voice that spoke was an old woman’s.

“M’lady died.”

For a single, wild second Lyanna wondered if she was hearing the Crone herself, and thought, _the old gods are false, I should tell Brandon_ , and then the pain took her again and she fell asleep.

 

\--

 

The next moment she woke, her heart was beating fast as a bird’s.

She forced her eyes open and sat straight up, gasping.

Her fear did not abate when she saw there was a shriveled little old woman sitting next to her, with a mouth puckered with wrinkles and fine silver in her hair. But then Lyanna recognized her, and relief flooded her, for a moment she’d thought she was in a room with the Crone but all along it was really—

“The Stranger,” said Old Elma.

“What,” Lyanna croaked. This close, her maid’s green-gold eyes unnerved her.

“The Stranger paid you a visit,” said the old maid. “Did he show you his face?”

Elma tucked a stray strand of hair behind Lyanna’s ear.

“Some say he is terrible and monstrous,” she said. “Others say he comes to them kindly and handsome. The unhappy ones, no doubt.”

“I don’t believe in the Seven.”

“They never asked for your belief. He visited you all the same. Your blood ran hot and cold, and finally, still. The maesters were just beginning to consult their books on how to bury a Stark.”

Lyanna felt a chill run through her.

“But I wasn’t…” Then she remembered.

“The child,” she said, her voice breaking. “I was with child. Did she survive?”

“The maesters gave him to a wet nurse. Death is a hard mother, and her teats are dry.”

Although she’d hoped for a boy, Lyanna tasted ashes in her mouth. Her husband would be displeased.

“A wet nurse? Who? Please, give him to me, I must see him.”

“Not yet,” Elma said.

“But I am his _mother_.”

“Are you truly?” Elma’s smile was toothless, the gums dark with age.

“I carried him and bore him.”

“Your heart was not even beating when he was delivered.”

Lyanna was impatient now. Whatever her son would face in his life, it was likely ten times as dangerous as peasant superstition.

“Who is to say he is not the Stranger’s child?” Elma said, still grinning that same dark, toothless grin. “Do you even know what that means, child?”

Lyanna bristled.  “I’m not a child.”

Admittedly she knew little of the old wives’ tales Elma was talking about—but they were Southron tales, and she was of the North, and their gods were not hers. 

But she sensed Elma wanted an answer, so she gave the best she could think of.

“It means a curse,” she said. “Bad luck.”

Lyanna bit her lip. Her child _was_ ill-fated, to be born to her. She’d caused nothing but war, pain, and misery in the Seven Kingdoms, where now even the most ill-reputed lady could call her _whore._

Old Elma’s eyes were shining with amusement.

“Mayhaps,” the old woman said. She clucked her tongue and sighed. “So many of these children born recently. I wonder what the gods are trying to tell us.”

“The gods seldom think of us,” Lyanna said. “Please, no more of these tales. Bring me my son.”

Old Elma gave Lyanna one long, searching look before rising and the room. A few moments later, she returned with a dark-haired babe in arms.

Lyanna nearly seized him from her, and the infant did not fuss as Lyanna took her son in her arms.

Against her will, she could feel herself start to soften with gratitude.

The babe’s dark tufts of hair were just like hers, and his eyes were not violet, but clear grey.

There was not a drop of Rhaegar in the child.

 “You’re mine,” she said.

“His Grace took it upon himself to name the boy,” said Old Elma sharply, cutting through Lyanna’s thoughts.

Lyanna’s head snapped up. “What?”

“He named him after Lord Jon Connington, his loyal Hand.”

Lyanna stared at her son.

It was strange—not what she would have chosen—but something about it seemed to fit. It wasn’t a Targaryen name, to be sure, and she was even sure she could dig up a Stark ancestor or two with that name, if she looked hard enough.

_Jon._

_Jon Targaryen._

It was for the best.

Left to her own devices, Lyanna might have named him Brandon, and the gods alone knew how Rhaegar would have reacted to that.

“Well, little Jon,” she said to her son. “Your father has better judgment than I thought.”

But there was no reply, not even a gurgle, as the child was already asleep again.


	7. Daenerys, Lyanna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But for now, it's time to run."

**Daenerys Targaryen**

 

They’d propped open a window before bed, to let out the smoke.

The morning sunlight came in thin and light—the sky outside was stony white, the way it was said to be before snow. Not that Dany knew what snow looked like, or how it marked its coming in the sky and air—she was a summer child—but she thought it might look and feel like this: white sky, and a chill in the breeze coming through the curtains.

In her bed, Dany shivered.

Very carefully, so as not to disturb her sleeping children, she tip-toed to the window and stood in front of it for a moment, the breeze washing over her, rustling her hair, before she turned the crank to shut it.

The wind carried with it the scent of the sea.

Dany heard a soft reptilian sound coming from the bed, and glanced back.

It was her little black dragon, looking at its mother quizzically, confused at the sudden loss of body heat.

The black dragon was Dany’s secret favorite (though this was her guilty secret, for what mother held any of her children above the others?) But the black, whom Dany had named Rhaella, the mother she never knew, slept at her side and only obeyed her and not Tyrion.

“Rhaella,” Dany said, holding a finger to her lips. Although she knew her dragon could not understand the gesture, there were times her dragon-children seemed so much like human children she forgot they were beasts.

Remarkably, Rhaella settled down, sitting like a cat on her haunches.

Dany shook her head, amazed as always that Rhaella obeyed. The largest of the three, Rhaella could be unpredictable—she was the one who had caused the most near-misses during the past few moon turns, nearly flying into the open at several memorable moments. But she favored Dany as much as Dany favored her.

The quietest dragon—Nymeria, green and bronze—moved closer to comfort Rhaella. Dany smiled as she watched.

Nymeria, though named after a fierce Dornish queen, was far from fierce herself. She spent most of her days grooming her brother and sister, gently picking off dead scales, and was always ready to lend the other two warmth or affection or attention, whatever they needed.

Rhaella and Nymeria were soon asleep, wrapped in each other.

The third dragon, as always, was attached to her husband. The smallest dragon, and by far the loudest—this one caused almost as much trouble as Rhaella—Tyrion had named him Brightroar, in part for his frequent and ear-splitting cries. 

Brightroar was Dany’s only male-child— though, truthfully, he was hardly _her_ child, with the way he seemed to gravitate toward Tyrion since birth.

Once, right after they were born, Dany somehow assumed they were all male.

She had only begun to think of suitable names for them, when Tyrion woke her up one night, breathlessly excited, to tell her he’d discovered two of her children were actually _female_.

That changed things somewhat. For the red-and-black dragon, a girl, there was only one name Dany would permit.

“Rhaella, after my royal mother,” she’d said. “The woman herself was small, pale, and frightened—I have seen her likeness—but this Rhaella is the largest of the litter, and will grow up powerful and strong.”

After some thought, she named the green dragon Nymeria. “After the legendary queen,” she’d said.

After Dany named the first two, Tyrion had looked down at the cream-and-gold sleeping in his arms.

“Brightroar,” he’d said after a moment. “Were she a girl I would name her Joanna. If he were sweet-natured like Nymeria, I should name him Jaime. But since he is neither… there is a greatsword my uncle told me about, called Brightroar, made of Valyrian steel. It was the Lannister sword for generations before it was lost. A dragon is rather better than a sword, I think.”

_A dragon is better than a sword…_

Dany hoped that was true.

They would need it to be, for what they were planning.

 

\--

 

“Close the window,” Tyrion said.

It was a moon’s turn before her brother’s wedding.

In fact Dany had just returned to her bedchambers after a session of tedious gossip with the bride-to-be, Arianne Martell, soon to be subjected to Viserys for an eternity, but who seemed (mysteriously, to Dany) quite happy about it. 

It was late, and Dany was tired, and only wanted to go to bed.

“The whole castle will hear the children,” Dany said.

Dany and her husband always referred to the dragons as “children,” for the word “dragons” would prick many an ear. It had become such an ingrained habit they even used it when they were alone.

Tyrion looked grim. “They will hear _us_ ,” he said.

“Not if we talk quietly.” Dany sat in front of the looking-glass, untying the ribbons from her hair.

“Then we must talk very quietly indeed.”

One day Dany would remember that night, _before,_ quite clearly.  She would remember her hair falling loose against her nightshift, silver against white, the candlelight flickering, the dragons restless as they talked. Her own heart beating faster as well.

“Do you still want to do this?” Tyrion asked her, peering over her shoulder.

Dany met his gaze in the looking glass. “I want nothing else,” she told him.

Tyrion sighed.

As he leaned closer, Dany noticed he smelled faintly of wine.

“ _You_ don’t want to do this,” she accused him.

“No, I do,” he said. “We have little choice in the matter, at this rate.”

Dany knew he was talking about the dragons. They were growing quickly—Rhaella recently learned to spit fire, which was bound to attract attention sooner or later. They’d kept their children a secret as long as possible.

Which was why Dany was to pay a visit to her good-sister Elia on the morrow.

“You are certain we can trust her?” she asked, softly.

“Of course I’m not.”

Dany looked up in alarm.

“Only insofar—“ Tyrion said hastily, seeing the look on her face, “—as you can never trust anyone in King’s Landing.”

“We must trust her; we can’t do this without her.”

“We could, had we time to properly prepare. But since we don’t, we are obliged to rely on her. She knows Lord Varys and Magister Illyrio, and we must trust the magister because he is our only way forward.”

Dany nodded. “We are going to end up in his manse anyway.”

“Exactly.”

A crease appeared between Tyrion’s eyebrows.

“We might consider, however… not telling her about Lyanna and Jon.”

Dany was aghast. “But that’s the whole reason—“

Tyrion cut her off.

“Queen Elia will not see it that way. Lyanna is a prisoner. Taking her will be seen as an act of war.”

“It is an act of mercy! This could be her only chance to escape.”

“Which is why, when your brother finds out his Northern Queen is gone, he will send his armies and all seven hells after us. And where is the mercy in that then?”

Dany bit her lip, but Tyrion wasn’t done.

“Your dream of raising the children in the shade of Illyrio’s manse? Of Rhaegar remaining in ignorance, believing our tale of touring the free cities? If we do this—if we take Lyanna and Jon—I promise you, none of that will ever come to pass.”

“But if we leave her here, then he _has_ her,” Dany said, forcefully. “And he can use her against me. If I send him a letter, telling him to release her, he could kill her. But if she’s with us, she’ll be safe.”

“If we take her, he might still kill her. And you and I and Elia as well, for plotting this treason. If we leave without her, we can orchestrate her release from afar, where nothing of King’s Landing and your brother and his armies can touch us.”

“How would we secure her release? By writing your sister in Winterfell? If Ned Stark wanted to save her, he would have already done so.”

“He didn’t know of her circumstances before. He thought she was staying of her own volition, because that is what she told him.”

“He shouldn’t have believed her,” Dany said stubbornly.

Tyrion sighed.

“Ned Stark always struck me as the sort who only mounted one rebellion per lifetime. But if he knew the effect Rhaegar has had on her—and he must, for my sister has told him— and if he had my father’s word, a Lannister army at his back…”

“Ned Stark would never trust your father,” Dany reminded him. “Most of the seven kingdoms would not.”

Tyrion looked unhappy.

“Fair point. _I_ am not entirely sure I trust him. But he would take any excuse to march on Rhaegar, and even Ned Stark, thick as he is, might understand why.”

They both lapsed into silence, Dany staring into the flames in the hearth, and Tyrion knotting his hands around a glass of wine.

“If we leave her here, there could be war here,” Dany said at last, each word measured and precise. “If we take her with us, everything stays between us and my brother.”

She furrowed her brow. “Is it not more noble to do the dangerous thing, and take her now, then let the Seven Kingdoms erupt while we sit safe in Illyrio’s manse?”

Tyrion smiled crookedly.

“’More noble?’ Yes. Yes, of course it is. This is why you should be Queen,” he said. “But I am a Lannister, and we think in terms of practicalities. It is remarkably difficult to do the right thing when you are dead.”

“It is difficult in any situation,” she said, touched by his words.

 Tyrion stood up and laced his hands behind his back. Dany watched his silhouette, dark against the bright flames in the hearth.

“I would ask one favor,” he said.

“Alright,” she said cautiously.

“Don’t tell Elia.”

“What? Why?”

“First of all, she will tell you no. She will say everything I have just said, and likely more. Second, the fewer people who know, the better. As far as she is concerned, we are fleeing to Essos alone with the children, we are staying with Illyrio while they grow, and we are only asking for Lyanna’s release once we can ride them.”

Dany nodded slowly, seeing the logic in it. It was just like Tyrion to think of this and say it to her. Everything was point and counter-point with him, and while she occasionally won an argument, she never got everything she asked for—he always held something back.

“In fact, tell no one. Not even Lyanna or Jon. Not until the last moment, and not until we have to.”

Dany stared at him. “How much notice should we give them then?”

“A few hours. Not more than that.”

Tyrion rubbed his face tiredly. “I never thought to have a wife whose scheming outpaced my own.”

“Half the scheme was yours,” she reminded him. “I could not do this without you.”

She pulled him closer, then reached up a hand and ran her fingers through his hair.

He kissed her in response, his mouth hungry as always against her own.

Sometimes it was off-putting to her, this hunger, for it was forceful and bottomless and unfathomable, but other times Dany found in herself a similar hunger, which matched his.

This was one of those times.

They shooed the dragons away. “Your mother and father need time to themselves,” Tyrion murmured.

They settled into bed, kissing. His hands were very gentle as he tugged at her nightdress, and she was gentle as well as she unbuttoned his doublet.

She settled beneath him. This was contrary to their usual arrangement, but she wanted it this way tonight. She wanted to run her hands along his twisted back.

She would never have told him so —he was so sensitive about these things—but if anything what drew her to him, when she was drawn, was the body he hated, those strange slopes, unique among all men.

 

\--

 

**Lyanna Stark**

 

She was dreaming of Winterfell when the girl woke her.

It was a good dream too, and detailed. She saw the turrets and the direwolf banners streaming proud from the castle, felt the heat emanating from inside its walls.

And she saw snow; she felt the kiss of winter on her cheek. Snowflakes melted in her hair and gathered in her cloak. Her breath was visible in front of her, vaporous and incorporeal as a ghost.

She walked to the weirwood, the trees looming darkly above her. Beneath her hands their bark was softer than other trees, like living flesh.

“Brandon,” she said, in a distinct clear voice.

“Brandon,” came the echo.

“Brandon.” The second echo was the faintest, and there was no third.

Yet he was there, Lyanna knew it.

She could feel him in the trees, with the old gods. Tears came to her eyes.

“Brandon, are you there?” she said. “My big brother. Where are you?”

Lyanna placed her hands on the weirwood trees, looking for him, but he seemed to evade her.

“Brandon, please.”  She sat at the foot of a tree, put her head in her hands, feeling him shift, evasive—

Behind her, the tree _shivered_.

“Brandon! Brandon, yes, it’s me. Is that you?”

Lyanna covered her face with her hands, suddenly embarrassed that he was seeing her this way, as the cowering animal that she had become.

_Lyanna._

“I’m so sorry, Brandon. I’m so sorry. Everything turned out so wrong.”

_Lyanna, my love. It’s alright._

“I want to go home. To be with you and Father.”

_Not yet, my sister, my love._

“I miss you.”

_I miss you._

 “Tell me what to do.”

_You must be strong._

“I can’t— I—”

_You must._

“But what am I to do?”

_Protect the children. They need you. They don’t yet realize it._

“Protect—”

_Your son. You died, and yet you lived to protect him._

“I am trying, but Rhaegar—”

_Rhaegar is as nothing to what is coming, Lyanna._

“Wha— What’s coming?”

_Are you a Stark, sister?_

“Winter,” Lyanna said softly. “Winter is coming.”

_Winter. Winter, and the long night._

“It’s true then? The next winter will be as bad as they say?”

_The worst there’s ever been. Lyanna, forget Rhaegar. Winter is coming…_

 

\--

 

The next thing Lyanna knew, Daenerys Targaryen was shaking her awake.

 

\--

It was the morning after Prince Viserys’s wedding to the Martell girl, and Lyanna was half in Winterfell when she woke—with the other half of her still on her fifth glass of wine at the feast night before—and the little Targaryen princess was jabbing her on the shoulder steadily and insistently.

“What is it, child?” Lyanna whispered, her voice strangled in her dry throat. “It is not yet dawn.”

It was still dark outside, and the darkness had only begun to leaven, so that Lyanna could barely see the girl’s face.

But what she could see looked strange.

The girl was dressed for traveling, in a brown cloak and riding boots. She had her hair pulled back in two long braids. 

“Where are you going?”

The girl was trembling so hard she could barely speak.

“Queen Lyanna,” she began, her mouth trying to compose itself. “By the time the next hour tolls—”

She paused, glancing over at the other bed, where Jon was asleep.

“I—”

Lyanna was increasingly concerned. The girl looked positively sick with fear. Lyanna reached out and smoothed her hair.

“What is it, princess? Tell me.”

“I wanted to offer you—”

“Offer me what?”

“The chance to—”

Lyanna felt her own face contort in worry. Whatever the girl had up her sleeve, she did not like the look of it. It was too dark, and she’d had too much wine the night before—these days she did not face Rhaegar in their bedroom with fewer than three glasses in her—and her mind was too jumbled. She couldn’t quite put the puzzle together until it tumbled out of the girl’s mouth.

“We’re leaving Westeros.”

Lyanna let out a long breath.

“We?”

“My— my husband and I. We’re leaving. In an hour. We thought you might… like to come with us.”

Lyanna’s mind whirled.

“It is still dark, half the castle is asleep— More than half—”

“Exactly. There may never be another chance.”

Lyanna stared at her in astonishment. She sat up abruptly, the blood rushing from her head and leaving her light-headed.

“Why—”

“Please, Queen Lyanna, I will explain—”

“Where—”

“Pentos,” said the girl. The name was a whisper in her mouth, its final S as sibilant as the wind.  

It sounded like mystery and promise.

Now she understood what the girl had planned, and Lyanna was shaking too.

_This is a plot. A childish plot she has cooked up._

But even as she thought it she was rising.

After all Daenerys was not such a child anymore; at fourteen, she was nearly the age Lyanna had been at the tourney.

_And that turned out so well_ , Lyanna thought bitterly.

“Wake Jon,” the girl said.

Lyanna could see in the dim light that her nervousness was leaving her, now that she’d said it. Her shoulders were thrown back.

She wondered how long the princess had kept this secret—there was a sense of exhalation and relief about her now, as though something long-awaited was finally coming to pass.

“Pack your things,” Daenerys said. “I’ll help you. Tyrion is waiting with ours at the dock.”

Lyanna pulled her own hair back into a thin braid, then donned her traveling dress she had not worn in so long. It hung off her loosely, but it was grey and white, and embroidered with wolves. Lyanna smiled to see the old sigil.

Dany woke Jon the same way she’d woken Lyanna. The boy fell utterly silent as Dany explained what they were about to do.

Soon the room was bare and Lyanna was bolting shut the door behind her. The sound was loud in the night, and they all winced.  

Their exit from the Red Keep was quieter. The prince’s wedding had been a lavish one, much grander than Daenerys’s own and—of course—Lyanna’s. Grand enough that the entire castle seemed still abed.

Still, Lyanna kept her hand on Jon’s shoulder the whole time, ready to pull him back at the slightest sign of trouble. But the guards around the palace were all drunk and asleep, or still bleary-eyed from the night before—Daenerys had chosen a good time for an escape, and they evaded all of them easily.

It was queer, to see the city at this hour. Lyanna was not sure she’d ever done it before. The sky above them was slate grey and forbidding, large enough to echo the silence all around them, and if possible, amplify it. There were crows in the square, picking at food and sipping up spilled wine from the revelers the night before.

As they approached the water, Lyanna’s heart seemed to beat faster. Moonlight glittered silver on the dark sea of Blackwater Bay.

Outlined in silver was the small silhouette of Tyrion Lannister, laden with parcels (though fewer than the number Lyanna had taken for herself and Jon). He grinned when he saw them.

_This is all your plot, isn’t it?_ Lyanna thought gloomily. _Well, boy, I hope you’re as clever as they say you are._

Daenerys ran forward first, pointing the way to their ship, a small, dingy thing that looked more or less seaworthy.  The words “Silver Queen” were stamped on the stern, but they were faded. This was a fishermen’s vessel, not a ship worthy of a queen and two royal children.

But then, Lyanna supposed they were giving up all that now.

Accompanying them were a pair of servants, from the looks of it a sellsword and a serving boy. Lyanna made a noise of protest as she saw them, for she’d wanted to take Old Elma with them, but Daenerys shook her head violently, saying in a low voice there wasn’t time to wake her.

“The East is no place for an old woman,” she said.

It was hardly a place for a young one, either, but Lyanna was not going to dispute that one.

Still, she felt almost naked without the old girl to attend her.

_You came with me to King’s Landing. Your daughter nursed my son when I was too weak to do so. And I am leaving you behind, to meet Rhaegar’s mercy._

 Lyanna closed her eyes, put a hand on the rough wood of the side of the ship.

_The old gods preserve us._

“Alright, lass, time to get on the ship,” the sellsword told her. Lyanna raised an eyebrow. 

_Lass?_

The Lannister boy quickly stepped into the conversation.

“I’m sorry, ser,” he said. “It’s understandable that you have mistaken her, since we are wearing traveling cloaks, but this is a highborn lady, and it would do well for you to call m’lady.”

Lannister met her eyes, and suddenly Lyanna understood.

_The sellsword has no idea who I am. And he and Dany mean to keep it that way._

It chafed, to accept “m’lady” after so many years of being Queen, for that title was the only thing she’d gained from the rebellion, when she’d lost so much else. But until they were safely in Pentos, they could trust no one with her identity.

“And you are, ser?” Lannister was saying.

The sellsword folded his arms. “Bronn. Not a ser.”

“Bronn, then,” he said, extending his hand. The sellsword, surprisingly, took it, looking bemused. Lannister turned to the boy next to him. “Introduce yourself.”

The little serving boy looked like he wanted to sink into the ground on the spot.

“P-Podrick Payne, my lord. Ser. Bronn.”

“Podrick Payne,” echoed Tyrion Lannister, leaning back to appraise the lad, hooking his thumbs into his breeches.

Of course the boy looked terrified— the Paynes were sworn to House Lannister. Lyanna smiled at young Podrick and went up the gangplank to find Daenerys.

She was with Jon, stowing their cargo in the hold. Lyanna wordlessly accepted her share in the work.

“Your little lord husband is a talker, isn’t he?” she ventured.

Dany smiled. “Never met a stranger.”

“Is the crew—”

Dany held up a hand and began to explain, her voice fast and soft.

“The ship is bound for Pentos. The crew know who I and who Tyrion is, but beyond that they know nothing.”

Lyanna nodded. “I understand—”

“The ones on the dock—the ones my husband is making friends with—are not part of the crew. The servant boy Podrick, we were forced to bring along with us when he heard us leaving this morning. The other one… I don’t know… must be a sellsword bound for the Free Cities to ply his wares. Hopefully there won’t be other passengers.”

Jon—who prior to this was still half-asleep —was now looking at Dany as if she’d grown three heads.   

“Pentos?” he croaked.

It was as if he’d just realized this was not all a dream. Lyanna held in a smile. She loved her son dearly, but this was not his best hour. 

Dany sighed. “Yes, but not immediately. I am to spend the afternoon with my good-sister in Dorne.”

“Elia.” Lyanna’s throat tightened.

“The Queen bears you no ill will, Your Grace,” Dany said, turning to Lyanna with a look of slight exasperation. “She is going to help us.”

“How?” Lyanna asked.

A queer look came over the young princess’s face.

“She has something we need.”

 

\--

 

By the time the ship cast off, the sky was a rosy pink, and the morning looked to dawn on a cloudy day.

“Could be better weather,” Lannister remarked.

The four of them were sitting below decks, crammed in the hold together, not daring to risk being above decks now that the sky was lightening and the docks filling with people.

The comment met with silence, as the full impact of what they were doing began to settle in.

Lyanna was trying to relax—she must set an example for Jon—but the longer she was awake the more questions she had, and the more misgivings rose to mind.

Looking at Daenerys, whose lovely face was tight with worry for the first time Lyanna could remember, she thought, _I have just tied my fate to a willful fourteen-year-old girl._

Lannister took out a round of bread from his sack, and tore off a piece. He did not hold it out to the group as a whole, or to his wife, but to Jon.

Jon’s face was hesitant but grateful as he tore off a large chunk.

“Thanks,” he said sheepishly, through a mouthful of bread.

Then Lannister offered it to Dany and Lyanna. Dany accepted it, though only a small piece, but Lyanna waved it away. Refusing food had become habit to her, and now even the smell of food at such an ungodly hour unsettled her stomach.

“Suit yourself,” Lannister said, shrugging.

Another moment of silence pass, during which Lyanna felt her nerves prickling once more.

“Are you going to tell me what we’re doing in Dorne?” Lyanna asked, looking pointedly at Daenerys.

Daenerys avoided her eyes. “I will tell you everything once we leave Dorne, I promise, Queen Lyanna,” she said. Her voice was very soft.

“Which is more than we can say for the rest of the crew,” Lannister said. “The rest of them will know nothing the whole time. Fortunately the way to Pentos is not long, and we will be there on the morrow. ….Although I fear even a day and night is too long in such close quarters. I do find it intriguing that our benefactor Queen Elia mentioned never showed himself at the docks this morning.”

He looked to Daenerys as he said this last bit—Dany, who had never looked more pale and frightened.

“If you tell me what your plan it,” Lyanna suggested, trying to keep her voice gentle. “Perhaps I can help. You are very capable, princess, but I am many years older than you, and sometimes it helps to have that perspective.”

Lannister moved to open his mouth again.

“That goes for you too,” she said with slight irritation. “I know what they say about you, my very young lord of Lannister, but let me tell you, the game you are playing is rather more complicated than anything that can accomplished on a cyvasse table.”

Surprisingly, that seemed to silence him. Still, his arrogance, his flippant smiles and japes, all of it bothered her. It reminded her almost of—

_Oh yes. Not long ago, I watched another arrogant young Lannister boy defy King Rhaegar. I assume you know how that ended, lad?_

Lyanna looked at both of them, each now subdued. For almost fifteen years she’d plotted her escape, but she never imagined it would come in this form. Between his Lannister defiance and her Targaryen recklessness—not to mention, their combined pride—the pair of them were like a torch and a jar of wildfire, and they didn’t even know it.

_Perhaps, in putting these two together, Blessed Rhaegar has finally made a mistake._

Lyanna was suddenly giddy at the thought of it.

It was just like Rhaegar. Women were pretty dolls to him; he never expected them to have ambitions of their own, and he certainly never listened to his sister and her childish dreams.

Which, to think of it, was how his own wife, Elia Martell, whom they were apparently about to visit, had quietly manipulated him for so many years. The Dornish Queen made an ally of the King’s brother Viserys, secured her own escape to Dorne, and took their daughter out from under her husband’s nose and he’d barely noticed. Now she was effectively ruling Dorne, independent of the other Kingdoms. Lyanna had heard the whispers.

And now this. This had Elia Martell all over it—the stop in Dorne sealed it.

With that, Lyanna relaxed a little bit more. The woman was legendary in certain circles for her plots—wedding the Crown Prince had been her first— and if she was truly involved, Lyanna trusted her to rein in any foolishness the children in front of her might have cooked up.

Still, her mind was buzzing with questions.

“I know we are going to Pentos,” Lyanna said carefully. “But consider—if we went North—”

The couple in front of her exchanged looks.

Lyanna pressed on. “If we went North, we would have the protection of my brother’s armies.”

“To Winterfell?” the princess said. “The King would surely march North after us. The road would be thick with whisperers.”

Lyanna stared at the girl. “If you think this is not going to come to war…”

“Queen Elia said much the same,” said Daenerys, looking troubled. “But if it comes to war, at least in Pentos you have not brought the war to your brother. If he marches south now, it is on him.”

Lyanna said no more. It was true, and yet… there was something the girl wasn’t telling her. She would find out soon enough.

 

\--

 

Some women were made for the sea, but not Lyanna.

This was only her second sea voyage in her life, and much like the first, she spent the voyage to Dorne pitched over a railing, puking into the sea.

“I am not a sailor,” she called, over the sound of the wind. The wind was strong, stirring the currents and rocking the ship dangerously.

The sellsword was above decks as well, watching her with amusement.

“This is only my second—ahh!” The boat rocked, and Lyanna fell to her knees.

She expected the man would help her up, but he just stood there, smirking.

_Prick_ , she thought, rubbing her back.  “I belong on a horse, not on a ship,” she said aloud, to no one in particular.

Below decks there was some kind of card game going on among the children. It was not cyvasse, but something with which Lyanna was unfamiliar, that seemed to require less skill. Still, her boy appeared to be flustered. The princess was leaning over, to look at Jon’s cards and help him play his hand.

“If you put the Tower in play, using the Empress will be for naught, because the Tower flips everything on its head. Don’t you see?”

Jon’s brow was furrowed, as he peered down at his Empress in play.

“You said the Empress was the most powerful card.”

“Well, she is, but the Tower has the upper hand.”

“So the Tower is the most powerful then.”

“ _In this instance_. In any other instance, perhaps not. It’s no good against Wheel of Fortune, for instance.”

“But I don’t have Wheel of Fortune.”

“It’s a hypothetical, Jon.”

Lyanna smiled and shook her head, hoping her boy wouldn’t see her.

In personality, her son was just like Ned, dutiful, sweet, and gentle. In his interests though, he was like Brandon and Lyanna herself. If he couldn’t swing a sword at it, he didn’t care about it.

Lyanna took a seat to watch, but her eyelids soon began to flutter. Between the wedding party the night before, the early morning, and the excitement of finally leaving King’s Landing, she was exhausted.

When she woke up, the boat was still and they were docked in Dorne. Jon was asleep beside her, his losing hand of cards splayed across the table.

Dany and Tyrion looked about to leave.

“I’ll come with you,” Lyanna said.

“Please don’t,” the princess said, putting a hand on Lyanna’s shoulder. “She doesn’t know you’re here.”

Lyanna stared.

“You’re not serious.”

The girl looked somber.

“I’m afraid I am.”

 

\--

**Daenerys Targaryen**

 

The Queen received them in the most public venue imaginable, the better to broadcast the Princess’s impending tour of the free cities.

The main square of Sunspear was almost blinding in its intensity—the sun seemed to burn the stones orange; Dany could feel the heat rising from them. All around, Martell banners tinkled against their flag poles, arranged in two opposing semi-circles around the square.

The area was barren save for two lines of Kingsguard leading the way to the Queen. Two of them had their swords crossed in front of her—Barristan Selmy and Arthur Dayne.

Dany sucked in breath.

She was not prepared for this level of ceremony, and she must look odd and disrespectful, meeting the Queen in her traveling clothes.

Worse, she kept eyeing Ser Barristan and Ser Arthur. Those two were her brother’s men—how long had they served at Elia’s behest instead?

Yet she felt—as she had not since waking up that morning—that she was stepping into a brave new world, full of excitement. This morning that had made her nervous, but now she felt _alive_.

She and Tyrion walked between the imposing lines of Kingsguard to where the Queen waited.

And the Queen she was, today—oh, she looked marvelous, dressed from head to toe in black, like a widow.

_Perhaps she means to be_ , Dany thought, biting her lip.

The slight breeze ruffled the Queen’s garments and her hair, and in the bright square every eye was drawn to the small, frail figure in black, rising against a deep blue sky.

Dany suddenly found herself falling to her knees.

Her husband did the same beside her.

Queen Elia approached, smiling.

She offered her hand to each of them. On either side of her head, Dany could feel the imposing mass of the two greatest knights in the realm. Arthur Dayne stood impassive, but Ser Barristan favored Dany with a smile. She smiled back, a little nervously.

“Queen of Dorne,” Dany murmured as she pressed her lips to Elia’s hand.

“Your Grace,” Tyrion offered, and did the same.

“How kind of you to visit me before embarking on your tour of the free cities,” Elia said, her clear voice ringing in the square.

For a moment, Elia reminded Dany of Rhaegar. The Dornish Queen had the same immense presence as her husband, though she was a third of his size and a woman as well.

_Would that I display the same power, when I am Queen._

“You said you had gifts for me, Your Grace,” Dany said.

“Oh, yes, Princess. The East is different from Westeros, and there are likely some items you have not thought of.”

“We would be honored.”

The Queen gestured to a black, opaque palanquin on the steps of the square, in which she must have stowed the dragons. Dany’s heart beat faster. Her fingers and hands tingled, sensing her children’s nearness, and tears were forming at the corners of her eyes. She had missed them so badly.

“You are entirely too generous, Your Grace,” Tyrion said. “Are you sure we will find a use for all this in Essos?”

“I would not leave without it,” said the Queen. “I tried to find you last night at your brother’s wedding feast, but unfortunately we missed each other. That is why it is good you have visited me today.”

“Will you need assistance with the palanquin?” the Queen asked.

Dany looked at Tyrion, who gave the slightest shake of his head. “No thank you, Your Grace—”

The Queen cut her off. “I will have a few of my servants help you board your ship with this.  It is heavy, and there may be more than what you are expecting.”

Then four strong men—all Dornish, she noted—appeared and lifted the palanquin, very gently.

“Thank you,” Tyrion said. Dany could hear the puzzlement in his voice, and shared it.

Apparently some of Elia’s servants knew her secret.

But then, so did Podrick Payne, the serving boy. The number of people who knew about the dragons was slowly creeping upward. Dany almost wanted to ask Elia if she could bring these servants with them as well, but she knew Elia, and the older woman would surely suggest it if she didn’t think they were trustworthy.

And they had to trust Elia.

_She doesn’t know about Lyanna,_ Dany reminded herself.

She thought back to Tyrion’s words, the night before she brought the dragons to Dorne.

_Only insofar as you can trust anyone in King’s Landing._

It sounded like paranoia at the time, but now Dany was very glad they’d told Elia only the barest minimum of the plan. Especially now that she saw these knights, the public ceremony and spectacle Elia had organized…

_These Kingsguard are participating in treason. Do they even realize it?_

She thought back to Ser Barristan’s smile.

_He knows about the children too_ , she thought suddenly, wildly.

She wondered how intractable the dragons had been without their mother. It seemed the Martells had struggled to contain them, with how many people seemed to know of their existence now.

Although she knew better, Dany was angry. _We kept this secret for half a year, and right under Rhaegar’s nose. Surely one moon’s turn wasn’t too difficult?_

Everyone—including Elia, and now Lyanna—kept lining up to tell her how young she was, how inexperienced, how little she knew of the ways of the world, but privately she thought she’d done quite well, considering the enormity of the secret she’d been keeping.

_And there’s my husband, spinning half-truths and lies to everyone we meet…_

She squeezed his hand in a sudden rush of affection. He seemed startled. She rarely favored him with these gentle gestures—she was not that kind of wife—and he was coiled tight as a spring right now, focused on maintaining that jovial façade he wore so well.

She let his hand go and with him, turned and curtsied to the Queen one last time. They followed the palanquin to their ship.

The palanquin was heavy as they said. Dany and Tyrion could only carry it into the hold with difficulty.

Part of their difficulty, however, lay not in the weight of the palanquin but in the fact it was _moving_. Dany could hear little scratchings and whimpers, signs that her children had been too long caged.

_They did not understand you, these Dornish. They are not half-dragon themselves. Hush, your mother is here._

Dany longed to tear open the palanquin and take her children into her arms, but they had to wait until they were out of view of anyone but Lyanna and Jon.

As the palanquin swayed, the sellsword offered his help.  “We are quite alright,” Dany said loudly.

“Sure you are,” the sellsword said. “You and the half-man here.”

Right at that moment, the palanquin wobbled and fell. Dany could not have said which of them was responsible.

An eternity of silence passed.

Then—

A reptilian shriek sounded in the air.

Clear as daylight in all directions.

Dany cringed.

“They’re… louder than I recall,” Tyrion muttered.

The sellsword’s eyes grew huge in his head. “Seven hells. What’ve you got in there?”

Slowly, defeated, Dany opened the flap of the palanquin to reveal her three children.

There they were: Rhaella and Brightroar and Nymeria, snapping and hissing and wiggling in one great mass, easily twice the size she remembered. Elia had packed several pounds of raw meat between them—surely the “additions” she’d mentioned earlier.

“Dragons,” Dany said. “I have dragons.”

The entire crew of the Silver Queen was soon circled around them, gasping, cursing the gods, or just staring, stunned, into the palanquin.

Then, tottering sleepily up the steps, came Lyanna and Jon.

“What is all this noise about?” Lyanna said.

Then her gaze fell upon the palanquin.

She raised a hand to her mouth.

“ _Gods_ ,” she croaked _. “Daenerys—”_

But her reaction was not the one that worried Dany.

Their sea captain raised his hands to his head, backing away from the palanquin. “I don’t—this kind of… cargo… this was not in the agreement…”

A dagger was at the captain’s throat in an instant.

Dany blinked.

Tyrion’s voice was calm as he pressed the tip of the dagger into the captain’s flesh.

“You will take us to Pentos, as promised, or I will slit your throat and feed you to them.”

“Y- Yes,” the captain said. There was a bead of blood forming on his neck, and his face was very red.

With a sudden, violent motion, Tyrion released the captain, who clutched his neck and wheezed.

Tyrion held the blood-stained dagger out to the rest of the group. Many of the crew took a step back.

“The same goes for the rest of you,” he said. “If any of you think to sell us to King Rhaegar, rest assured, you will not make it to King’s Landing alive.”

Dany stepped forward and smiled.

She put her fingers around Tyrion’s hand, the one that held the dagger.

“That’s enough, my love,” she told him, although truthfully, she’d enjoyed that little display and could have watched for much longer.

Even the brutish sellsword was looking at Tyrion with new respect in his eyes.

“You’re frightening the sailors.”

She took the dagger and slipped it into the waistband of her traveling dress.

It left a bloodstain, but the shock of color on the drab dress pleased her.

Dany turned to the captain. “Sail now, as fast as the winds will carry us. Never speak of this again to anyone you know.”

More softly she said, “Those dragons are my children, and I value their lives rather more than yours.”

She felt a soft nip at her knee.

Dany picked her up and stood above decks with the dragon in her arms for the rest of the afternoon, fearing no one, watching for the Pentos coastline.

 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Those of you who leave reviews, thanks for taking the time to let me know what you think. A lot of you are smart and passionate about ASoIaF, so it's helpful to hear your perspective.
> 
> That said, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, I just started a new job. I have you to thank for this, honestly, because writing this fic got me through some rough times prior to getting that phone call. So, thank you.
> 
> But this does bring up the total number of jobs I am working to two, one of which is full time, which will make it difficult to maintain weekly updates. I will try updating every 3-4 weeks and see how that goes. Later on I might be able to bump it back up again. I'm so sorry about this-- I really wanted to keep weekly updates, but I also need to sleep once in a while :)
> 
> Thank you as always-- y'all are lovely.


	8. Sansa, Cersei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News of Lyanna's disappearance reaches Winterfell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Game of Thrones premiere day, lovely readers! Enjoy!

**Sansa Stark**

 

Sansa always had her stitches.

“Lady Sansa,” Septa Mordane told her, leaning over. “Those are lovely. Do you see that, ladies? Your sister has the loveliest stitches. Small and tight.”

Myrcella looked down at her own stitches, almost as small. Her rosebud mouth formed a slight frown.

“Please, septa,” Sansa said softly. “My sister’s are just as lovely.”

Septa Mordane smiled. “Always a lady, our Sansa. Talented _and_ humble.”

Sansa didn’t know whether to say thank you or deflect the compliment. Her cheeks reddened slightly.

Truthfully, she didn’t want to reject it entirely—her stitches were very neat, they all said so, and they were all she had. Myrcella was clever, and Arya was so brave and their mother’s favorite, and Sansa was just Sansa, with her fine red-gold hair and perfect stitches.

Arya looked down at her own needlework—she’d only made one so far, a big red X—and grinned at Sansa.

“And you, Lady Arya,” Septa Mordane chided. “You could stand to learn from your sister’s example.”

“But I don’t want to make neat stitches,” Arya whined. “Then I’ll be a lady, and I can’t go off and have adventures.”

Sansa kept her head down. She wanted to have adventures too, but her kind of adventures were different than Arya’s. Arya thought all adventures involved swords and fighting.

But Sansa’s involved dresses and a handsome prince.  (And yet— fat chance of that when she was a lady of Winterfell, easily a half a fortnight’s ride away from any court of importance.)  

“I don’t see why proper ladies couldn’t have adventures,” Myrcella said, with a glance at Sansa. Sansa allowed her a smile—Myrcy often came to her rescue like this—but Arya only pouted.

“Girls,” Septa Mordane said. “We must all get along, or I will tell your mother.”

_You can tell Mother all you like_ , Sansa thought. _She’ll only side with Arya. She always does._

But at least she had Father. Father, and Myrcy, who was almost her twin, but for a year and a few details.

Sansa’s hair had a strong red cast (“wolf blood,” Mother sniffed), while Myrcy’s was pure gold. Her older sister’s eyes were Lannister green, while Sansa’s were a clear blue-grey that even Mother admitted was stunning.

But otherwise, they were of a height, although Sansa was younger, and they looked so alike from the back the servants often mistook them for each other.

Sansa squeezed Myrcy’s hand under the table, and pointedly avoided Arya’s eyes.

Sometimes she doubted Arya was her sister at all.

She’d even asked Mother once, but Mother’s face went cold, the lines of her mouth and forehead set.

“I thought you would ask me whether _you_ were mine,” she said.

She was dressing Sansa’s hair at the time, and she pulled so tight tears appeared in Sansa’s eyes.

“A lioness does not cry, Sansa,” her mother told her. “Neither does a wolf.”

_I must not cry._

But Sansa did cry, all the time. She cried over romances and songs and stories—any time the traveling bards sang for the lord and ladies of Winterfell—but also when she skinned her knee, and when her friend Jeyne Poole’s little dog died, and she cried from nerves whenever she heard about anything dreadful, like Old Nan’s stories of the cold dead things to the North.

After that remark, Sansa always wondered if Mother was right, and she was a big mistake. Wolves and lionesses were fierce beasts, and Sansa did not feel like a beast.

That was Arya. Even Myrcy had her moments, when Sansa could sense her big sister’s sheathed claws.

 “Guess what I heard, Myrcy,” Arya sang.

“I could not begin to.”

“I heard Mother and Father were going to marry you to the Prince. You or Sansa. But Mother said no.”

“That’s not true.” Myrcy’s voice was calm, but suddenly Sansa’s heart was fluttering.

“You heard? From where?” Sansa asked, her voice going up a pitch. She put down her sewing. “Who told you?”

“Overheard it,” said Arya with a shrug.

“Were you creeping around the castle again?” Myrcella asked. “You know what Father says.”

“He says I’m quiet as a cat,” Arya said with pride.

“But you _shouldn’t_.” Myrcy was all big sister in that moment, all judgment and scorn.

“Has the Prince asked for us?” Sansa folded her hands, to keep from bouncing in her chair.

“Doubt it,” Arya said. “Anyway, Mother said you can’t. They’ll offer Rickon instead.”

“But why?”

“Mother must have had her reasons,” said Myrcy, resuming her sewing with that enviably calm air.

“And Father?” Sansa was hopeful. Although she was a disappointment to Mother, Father had a soft spot for her.

“Father said no too.” Arya was wholly unapologetic.

_You’re such a brat_ , Sansa thought, glaring at her little sister. Then came a creeping sense of guilt, and she banished the thought.

“Well. That’s a shame,” she said instead.

She would just have to ask Father later.

 

\--

 

Sansa took twice as long to leave the sewing lesson that day, for it was beautiful and warm outside and the weather led her to daydream. It had been cooler lately, but today it felt like high summer. Sansa was tempted to turn a cartwheel over the field of green in front of the castle, but didn’t want to get grass stains on her dress.

She was imagining the court at King’s Landing, the lavish lords and ladies in their finery, all in silk dresses with bright jewels in their hair. They must all be beautiful at the King’s court, every one, and each had better manners than they last, always kissing each other’s hands and bowing.

She imagined there were gardens. On a day like today, she could almost smell them—

“Hurry up, little dove,” Myrcy said, smiling. She came up next to Sansa and linked pinkies with her sister.

Myrcella always called her “little dove” when she was like this, but she meant it fondly, and secretly, Sansa liked to think of herself as a bird, flying away and singing, uncatchable and lovely, and always just out of reach.

Maybe she’d make a better bird than lioness.

“It really is a shame Mother and Father didn’t accept the proposal,” Myrcella said, cutting into Sansa’s thoughts. “You would do so well at King’s Landing.”

Sansa hesitated. With Myrcella, one could never be sure whether a compliment was sincere, though most of the time it was, or whether there was a thorn hidden inside.

Pretty girls did well at court, she knew.

And the only thing that ever came between Sansa and Myrcella was the fact that, though they were both lovely, Sansa was just a little bit prettier.

Sansa decided to go the safer route.

“As would you,” she said, swinging their linked hands slightly.

Myrcella smiled. “It would be so nice to meet our aunt and uncle, wouldn’t it?”

“And a cousin!” Sansa laughed. It was bizarre to think of these relations, so far away.

Her aunt Lyanna, in particular, was a figure of intrigue for Sansa. Lyanna Stark was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, so much so the King himself forswore his marriage vows to wed again.

Sansa would give anything to meet her, to hear her tell the story of herself and the King.

She knew Myrcella wanted to meet their uncle, having been compared to him all her life.

(Once, when she and Myrcy were caught pranking Arya—stuffing her mattress with sheep shift—they almost got away with it through Myrcella’s affected guilelessness. “You lie like my brother,” Mother’d said after a moment. “He was always innocent as a lamb too.”)

“Father!” Arya yelled beside them, spotting Lord Stark, who was leaving his council meeting with the smallfolk. One running leap later, Arya was in their father’s arms.

“Arya,” he said, surprised. “Ladies.” He nodded to Myrcella and Sansa.

Lord Stark was a stern man with a long face, but if Sansa looked carefully she could see the warmth in his eyes.

“Father,” she said affectionately, and soon all three Stark ladies had enfolded their lord father in a hug.

“How were your lessons?” he asked them, the sound of his voice muffled by Arya’s hair.

“Very good, Father,” Myrcella said.

“Septa Mordane said Sansa makes horrible stitches,” Arya said, turning her head and sticking out her tongue out at her sister.

“She did not!” Sansa insisted. She wanted to burst out, _she said mine were the loveliest_ , but that would come too close to boasting, so she said nothing.

“My dear daughter,” Father said to Arya. “My forest lass. I confess I doubt your story.”

Arya pouted and buried her face in their father’s chest.

With a groan, Father lowered her gently after a moment, to embrace his other daughters.

“Septa Mordane speaks highly of you, my lady,” Father said to Sansa, holding her by the shoulders and looking her in the eyes.

Sansa blushed. “That’s kind of her.”

Father always called her “my lady,” but particularly when he thought she was being good. It was a kind of praise, one Sansa lapped up eagerly.

“Father,” she asked, on a whim. “May I speak to you in private?”

He furrowed his brow. “Of course.”

“Girls,” he told the other two. “Run along and help your mother with Rickon.”

“Yes, Father,” said Myrcella, grabbing Arya’s hand. “Come along, pup.”

When the other two had gone, Father turned back to Sansa and asked, “What is it, Sansa?”

Sansa hesitated, watching the sunlight stream into the front courtyard beside them. It was silly, but she had to know if what Arya had said was true.

“Arya told me… the Prince requested the hand of my sister or myself in marriage.”

Father drew in a deep breath, and leaned on the stone wall behind him. He patted the spot next to him. Sansa sat too.

“Is it true?” she asked, trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

Father rubbed his temples. “It is.”

 Sansa frowned. “Then— But Arya said you said no.”

“We did.”

The word _why_ was burning on Sansa’s tongue.

“You are probably wondering why,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “First of all, the prince is a young boy who knows little of marriage or alliance. The man who wrote to us was the King.”

“The King.” Sansa could hardly breathe, to think of the King writing her name on the parchment. Her name. _Sansa Stark._

“And you said no?” Sansa was suddenly frightened. Admittedly, she knew little of kings, but she knew enough to guess they misliked being refused by their subjects.

“We told him we would consider an alliance between our son and his daughter when he comes of age.”

“Rickon? He’s only a babe. A match would be years away.”

He looked surprised that she said so, and pleased—as though she’d said something insightful. But Sansa could not guess what it was.

Her father gently took Sansa’s hand. Her own hand looked very small, swallowed between Lord Stark’s great, capable hands.

“My lady Sansa,” he said. His face was serious and sad. “The court at King’s Landing is not everything it should be. You like the princes and knights of the stories, don’t you?”

Sansa winced. Everyone else thought her a fool for believing in stories; it would hurt her if her lord father, who was so loving and gentle, thought the same.

But her father surprised her.

“Well, those valiant princes do exist,” he said. “Though they are fewer and farther in between than they should be. Very few of them, I’m afraid, can be found in the royal family today.”

“They can’t?”

Her father shook his head. When he spoke, he sounded pained. “There is much you do not know about our family. That your mother and I wished to keep from you, until you were old enough…”

He looked at Sansa, then seemed to make a decision. “You are still very young, my lady.”

Sansa tried to conceal her disappointment.

“You are right, Father,” she said. She stood up and curtsied, and was about to turn and walk away when she caught her father’s eye and said hesitantly, “I know about Uncle Brandon.”

Her father paled almost imperceptibly.

“Is that why?” Sansa said, forcing the words from her lips, her voice high and squeaky.

“Brandon was a good brother. He would have loved you. But he was very brave… almost rash, you could say.”

Sansa had heard tales of Brandon over the years. What she’d heard reminded her of Arya.

“He rode to fight the Mad King,” Sansa said. “The Mad King burned him alive.”

It was such an awful thing to think about, that Sansa could feel her lips trembling as she spoke it.

Her lord father closed his eyes. “Yes, my love.”

“But the Mad King died. Uncle Jaime slew him,” she said. She made her voice calm, like she was reciting a story.

“My daughter,” her father said, opening his eyes. “Where have you heard these tales?”

_Mother_ , Sansa almost said. Sometimes, after Mother had had several glasses of wine at dinner, she would talk about her dead brother Ser Jaime. The subject made her father very uncomfortable, so Sansa did not want to mention it.

As for Uncle Brandon, she knew about him from Old Nan, who told her about the Wild Wolf—tales so vivid she could almost see him in her mind’s eye, tall, handsome, and strong, with mischief in his eyes, his deep voice carrying a Northern burr.

“Then Ser Jaime died,” Sansa said uneasily. “And Prince Rhaegar became King after his father.”

There was more to it than that, she knew. Sansa wanted to throw in the part about the King falling in love with Lyanna, because that was her favorite part, but something made her hold back. Her father already looked so sad, she could not bear to remind him of Lady Lyanna— and how much he must miss his sister.

“That’s right, my lady,” her father said. “You are older than I think you are.”

“The royal family hasn’t been very nice to us, have they?” she asked, drawing closer to her father. He smelled like leather and wood.

“No,” said her father. “You understand, then, why your mother and I want to keep you here in Winterfell.”

“But what about Rickon?” Sansa wanted to know.

Her father’s mouth tightened. “He will be fierce enough.”

_Arya is fierce too_ , Sansa thought. 

Then she thought of something else.

“But the King loves Aunt Lyanna, doesn’t he, Father?”

As she said it, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. But it tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop it.

But her father would say yes, for of course he must love her. She’d seen a drawing of the two of them, the King and his Northern Queen, though she’d never met them. The drawing was of Harrenhal, and showed a sad-eyed silver-haired prince and a beautiful woman crowned with a wreath of blue roses.

Whenever she imagined wearing those roses herself, they felt soft and heavy in her hair, like a swarm of butterflies alighting there.

Her father bowed his head.

“Your aunt… And King Rhaegar. The truth is more complicated than the bards would have us believe.”

“But do they love each other?”

Her father cupped her cheek in his palm.

“They did,” he said simply.

 

\--

 

The next morning, while she broke her fast, Sansa watched as her mother tied a letter to a raven’s leg. The raven was restless and wild, and Mother scolded him when she could not get him to sit still.

The letter she held was addressed to the King and bore the seal of Winterfell, a direwolf in a thick smudge of black ink. Sansa knew the letter was a marriage pact going to King’s Landing.

Next to her, Rickon screamed in his chair. Sansa turned to comfort him, smoothing down his dark curls and whispering into his small pink ears.

“It’s alright,” she said softly. “Mother is sending for a wife for you.”

Her little brother’s face was red as ever.

“She will be a good wife, a pretty dragoness,” Sansa told him.

Across from her, Arya looked up from her food and snorted.

“Dragonesses aren’t pretty,” she said. “They’re big and scaly.”

Sansa fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“I meant the human kind,” she said, annoyed. “They say King Rhaegar is the handsomest man in the Seven Kingdoms, so his daughter must be beautiful.”

Their mother made a noise that might have been a scoff.

“The King is lovely as a girl,” she said, turning toward her daughters. “I would prefer a man who can sweat and swing a sword.”

“On a battlefield—not at a tourney,” she added briskly, at the look on Sansa’s face.

“What about Rhaegar’s son?” asked Arya slyly, with a pointed look at Sansa. “Is he lovely too?”

Sansa glared at her.

Mother sighed. “I suppose so. Though the last time I saw the boy, he was no older than Rickon.”

Before she could stop herself, Sansa started imagining a boy with silver curls and pouty lips.

“Sansa wants to marry the prince,” Arya sang.

“I do not,” Sansa said, her cheeks coloring.

Myrcy would rescue her, but Myrcella had gone ahead to their lessons, leaving Sansa alone with Arya and Mother, and defenseless. Mother looked at Sansa with a raised eyebrow.

“I was much the same at your sister’s age,” Mother told Arya, her expression inscrutable.

It was the first time Sansa could remember Mother drawing a comparison between herself and her middle daughter, and it startled her, and she did not know what to say.

“Well, _I_ don’t want to marry a prince,” said Arya, looking as confused as Sansa. “I don’t want to marry anyone. That’s Sansa and Myrcy.”

“Well, marry you must,” said Mother, suddenly serious. She put her hands on her hips and turned toward her youngest daughter. “For, sword or not, you must do your duty, as do we all.”

Arya looked deeply upset at this, but Sansa felt a sense of triumph. Along with a prickling worry.

“But Father—” Sansa didn’t dare voice the rest of the question.

Mother took a seat opposite Sansa and laced her hands before her.

“One may grow to love a husband,” she said. “But you should know, that on the day we were wed, he was a stranger to me, and I spent much of our wedding feast wanting to stab myself with a dagger.”

Sansa winced; Arya looked astonished.

With a glance at her youngest daughter, Mother added, “By then, I wanted to be wed about as much as you do now.”

Sansa paled. _Poor Father_. Brides were supposed to be happy on their wedding day.

“But,” said Mother, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Within a year I had Myrcella to think of, and quite soon I found myself loving your father for giving her to me. So it will be with you, my little cubs. I promise marriage and childbearing is not as awful as it sounds.”

Looking at Sansa, she said, “ _Nor_ as wonderful. All we can hope for is more choice than I was afforded.”

Sansa said nothing, thinking of what her own choice would be. Even with everything she knew, a small, secret part of her still wished it was _her_ marriage proposal on its way to King’s Landing.

Now, who would she end up with? Thinking of her family’s allies, she knew it could be one of the Umbers, boys with big, ugly faces who smelled funny. Or one of the Karstarks, each pale and solemn, who danced like they had two left feet.

_It isn’t fair_ , Sansa thought, biting her lip. All the nice-looking boys she’d heard of were somewhere to the south, far away from Winterfell: Prince Aegon in King’s Landing, Ser Loras of Highgarden, whom they called the Knight of Flowers—even her cousin Prince Jon was said to be fair to look upon.

Despite how unlikely it seemed, Sansa felt curiously certain that one day she would see King’s Landing, and maybe then, she would have her pick of them. 

“Yes, Mother,” she said.

In the meantime, she could enjoy Arya’s reaction to the revelation that she too would have to marry one day.

 

\--

 

About a fortnight later, it was another calm and beautiful day. Arya was playing with the butcher’s boy—of course, although Mother and Father had expressly forbidden her to do so—Myrcella was out riding, and Sansa was by herself, playing with the birds in the aviary.

The aviary was one of the tallest towers in Winterfell, and up here, the air was thinner. Because of it, the birds’ songs sounded clearer up here, and so did Sansa’s voice, as she sang back to them.

She was feeling quite luxuriously happy, when a raven came. Sansa felt her pulse quicken in excitement—perhaps this was the reply to Rickon’s betrothal to Princess Rhaenys—but when she examined the raven’s leg, the letter did not bear the royal seal, crimson and black, but rather Lannister red.

The lion rampant.

She should not have opened it, but the way the letter was folded, she could see the outline of its opening words, and they filled her with foreboding.

“My sweet sister,” the letter read, written in an elegant hand. “I am sorry.”

Sansa slit it open.

“Soon you will hear news of what has happened. Please do not do anything foolish. I wish I could give you a full explanation, but there simply wasn’t time to meet with you in Winterfell and I fear any letter with our seal is about to receive a deal more scrutiny. Though it might appear otherwise, I am paying the debt.”

Sansa stared at the scroll, signed with an ornate T.

_Mother will want to see this_ , she thought.

Breathlessly, she ran down the stairs.

 

\--

 

Bursting into the great hall, she found her parents holding court with the smallfolk.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, curtsying in the direction of the poor farmer, who had been expounding at length about recent cattle thievery.

“What is it, my lady?” her father asked.

“It is a letter,” she said in a small voice, holding it out.

“A letter,” echoed her mother, drily. “I do hope it’s a fascinating one, child.”

She handed it to her mother, seal first.

Just then, she heard a hawk scream outside the walls. The doors to the Great Hall were thrown open to let in the warm air and light from outside, and the hawk was able to swoop in before the lord and lady of Winterfell, its leg bearing an immaculate roll of parchment.

_This_ one bore the royal seal.

Her mother and father exchanged glances.

“Perhaps,” her father said, slowly, to the man in front of him. “We can continue this on the morrow.”

Even the farmer looked at the royal seal with trepidation. Bowing slightly, he backed away from the hawk as if it was a jar of wildfire.

“Thank you, m’lord,” he said, and took his leave, leaving the Starks alone in the Great Hall.

Her lady mother glanced at Sansa, noticing the ripped Lannister seal, but was soon absorbed in the contents of the first letter. She was very pale and her mouth was a thin line when she finished.

Then she opened the second one.

“What is it, Cersei?” Sansa’s father said, his voice soft and hoarse.

Both Mother and Father now seemed scarcely aware of her presence, and Sansa did not want to make a sound, for fear they would dismiss her and she would never find out what bad thing had happened.

Mother thrust the letters into her husband’s hands.

 “Cersei…”

“Your sister has left the capital.”

Father fell silent.

Then—

“How?”

“My brother,” Mother said.

“What?” Father looked as dumbfounded as Sansa felt.

But where Sansa felt only confusion, her father sounded both confused and a little afraid.

“Where is she now?” he demanded.

Mother rubbed her temples. “Not here, thankfully, or we should have royal soldiers upon us in days. Although we still might.”

“Sansa,” her mother said, suddenly realizing her daughter was in the room with them. “Go play with your sisters.”

“But—”

“ _Go_.”

The venom in her mother’s voice was enough to make Sansa turn and run.

 

\--

 

 

**Cersei Lannister**

 

As soon as Sansa left, Cersei read the letter again.

Not her brother’s letter, the second one, the one that announced itself with a hawk’s screech, the King’s proclamation:

“Attention all loyal subjects of the Realm,” it began. “The rightful Queen Consort of the Seven Kingdoms, Lyanna Targaryen, the King’s lawful wedded wife, as well as his son and heir, Prince Jon, were discovered missing the morning after the wedding of Prince Viserys of House Targaryen and Princess Arianne of Dorne. Queen Lyanna and Prince Jon are believed to have been stolen away. Any House harboring or aiding their kidnappers must surrender them now, or be found guilty of treason. Signed on this day, King Rhaegar Targaryen.”

Cersei felt a chill steal over her.

“Stolen away,” she murmured. “As if she didn’t run from you the first chance she got.”

“Where is she?” Ned asked her again, this time with a slight edge.

“I don’t know,” she said, with heat of her own. “You read Tyrion’s letter as well as I did. I’m afraid he didn’t mention it.”

“Your brother is committing treason.”

“Not my brother,” Cersei said slowly, putting the pieces together in her head. “My brother’s wife. Only a Targaryen princess could dream of getting away with this, and my brother—the lovesick fool— has two heads and a terrible habit of listening to the wrong one at the wrong time.”

“And who knows,” she added. “You always told me your sister had a touch of wolf’s blood.”

“If she did, it is gone now,” said Ned, gruffly. “For my sister has been telling me lies for thirteen years, to avoid exactly this circumstance.”

Inwardly, Cersei cursed her own remaining sibling.  She wondered if her lord father had received a similar letter, in Casterly Rock, and what kind of reception it met with _there_.

That was for later though—later, she could pore over her brother’s letter. Now, the King’s proclamation demanded a response from Winterfell.

Although he hadn’t written of it, Cersei knew Rhaegar must be aware by now of Princess Daenerys’s conspicuous absence. But in true fashion, he wouldn’t mention such a family feud in the letter that had surely gone out to every noble house in the Seven Kingdoms.

No, it was Winterfell, and Casterly Rock, that would bear the brunt of the King’s wrath.

“We are as upset about this as the King is,” she said to Ned, thinking hard.

But her lord husband was staring off into space, his face a mask of stoicism and anger.

“Ned,” she said, touching his arm. “We must write this down. Tell the realm we are shocked and dismayed by the Queen’s disappearance, that we echo the King’s sentiment that any House harboring her must surrender her and her son immediately.”

Cersei smiled thinly. “Though perhaps we do not have to say to whom.”

Ned finally met her eyes.

“Do you think the King will listen?” he asked.

Cersei was taken aback by the anger in the question. He’d never raised his voice to her before.

“I don’t know,” she said uncertainly.

“Did he listen?” her husband continued. “When my brothers and I wrote letter after letter, pleading for my sister’s release after she disappeared? When you screamed for mercy as he took your brother’s head?”

Cersei could taste bile in the back of her throat. “Don’t even say his name.”

“I’m talking about the King, not your brother,” Ned said, his hand settling on the hilt of his sword. “Rhaegar. Men— good men, brave men— died to remove him from power, but that man still sits the Iron Throne.”

“Now who is treasonous?” said Cersei.

But she smiled all the same. Here, at last, was Brandon Stark’s brother, Robert Baratheon’s childhood friend, the wolf blood, the wild north, finally present in dutiful Lord Eddard Stark.

Even partially directed at her, it was exciting to see.

“No,” she said at last. “I do not think the King will listen. How fast do you want him to march North? Weeks? Or half a year? Because that is the difference between ignoring his letter and responding to it.”

Ned looked up at her doubtfully. Cersei suppressed a sigh—how many times in their marriage, had she told him the best course of action, only to be met with that blank Northern stare? He could not comprehend the value of a gesture for show. Up here, men and women acted with clear purpose, or not at all.

“Even if he gives us half a year, we aren’t prepared,” Ned said.

“No,” she said. “We aren’t.”

“But the North is ours,” said Ned thoughtfully.

“And the King has the Crownlands, and the Reach,” spat Cersei.  “And the Riverlands, and the Vale.”

“He doesn’t have the Vale.”

Cersei raised an eyebrow.

“I was fostered with Jon Arryn.”

“And then you were betrothed to Catelyn Tully,” Cersei said pointedly.

There was much and more she could say to that point, but considering she—or rather, her father, who had insisted on the match—was to blame for _that_ broken arrangement, she decided it was best to remain silent. Across from her, Ned looked like he was dwelling on Lady Catelyn as well.

Then an idea occurred to her.

“Perhaps… it is time to mend those fences.”

Ned looked up, frowning. “It may be too late for that, my lady.”

“For you to wed Lady Catelyn, yes. I suppose it is. But if you truly have an accord with Jon Arryn… there may be something we can do to renew it.”

Cersei paused, smiling.

“Myrcella has flowered.”

Ned rocked back and exhaled. “You want to sign away another of our children.”

“A woman’s life is not a song, Ned. The sooner our girls learn this, the better.”

After a moment, she added, “This would not be a bad match for her, either. The boy Robb is said to be quite handsome, and he is of an age with her.”

“Please, Cersei, she is just a girl.”

“And Robb Arryn is just a boy. You protect them too much… when I was their age, my mother was dead and my father showed more concern for his horse than he did for his daughter.”

Cersei chuckled to think of her lord father. It was easy to laugh at Lord Tywin from Winterfell, far easier than it had been in the bowels of Casterly Rock.

“And we’re on the subject,” she continued. “You must stop filling Sansa’s head with tales. No doubt she expects the Knight of Flowers by now. And you and I both know the scene she will make when she finds she is promised to Smalljon Umber.”

Ned waved a hand. “The Umbers will remain loyal even if I do not offer them my daughter.”

“Nevertheless, they have asked for her hand, they are your most loyal bannermen, with every right to expect you will say yes.”

“She is eleven years old,” said Ned. “They can wait a while to find out.”

Ned’s expression was so stubborn, the set of his jaw so defined, that Cersei knew she’d lost that particular argument.

“Alright,” she said, relenting. “We will wait on Sansa’s betrothal. But we must win back the Tullys and the Vale, and Lord Jon and Lady Catelyn’s son Robb is the key to both. Myrcella will do her duty, she is a good girl and knows what is expected of her.”

Ned shook his head, but Cersei knew she’d won. “Myrcella for Robb, then.”

Cersei nodded. “As soon as possible. Then if Rhaegar marches north, he will have to deal with the North and the Vale.”

“ _If_   Rhaegar marches North.”

“He will,” Cersei said simply. “He's hated you for years. This is the perfect excuse.”

“But _we don’t have Lyanna_. We don’t even know where she is.”

“We will know soon enough,” said Cersei.

If there was one thing she was confident of, it was that. It was still possible that her disappearance was part of some strange plot her father and brother cooked up. And if not… well, Cersei wouldn’t be surprised if Lord Tywin sent an entire army after his son.

“In any case, it’s immaterial. The King does as he likes,” she said, wondering if it was too early for a glass of wine. Thinking about her father and brother always made her thirsty for Dornish red.

“Then I will write to Jon Arryn in the morning with our proposal,” said Ned.

“Tell him we want a grand wedding at Winterfell,” said Cersei. “He should bring hundreds of his best fighting men.”

She smiled a little deviously. “To celebrate, of course.”

 

\--


	9. Tyrion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy who played chess with the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I've missed you, and I am so sorry for the delay-- real life has been insanely busy. I hope to post on a more regular schedule from now on.

**Tyrion Lannister**

 

Tyrion did not think he’d met anyone quite so humorless as this skinny Targaryen prince.

Throughout the whole sea voyage, despite sharing a cargo hold that was four feet by five, the boy had yet to utter a single word to him.

Oh, he’d had an inkling of the lad’s type—that was why he’d offered the bread of friendship, quite literally, to Jon at the start of the voyage.

The boy accepted it without so much as a thank you, the tips of his ears turning pink, and his eyes cast down, unable to meet Tyrion’s.

_What are you afraid of?_  he thought in astonishment.  _That I remember your cruel jape? Trust me, my boy, if I dwelled on every unkind word sent in my direction, I should have jumped into the sea with lead in my arms several years ago._

Then there was the practical side of it. Tyrion was going to be one of three Westerosi the little prince would know in Pentos.

_We are about to spend quite a great deal of time together._

By the end of the voyage he’d already had a taste of what that would entail—both Northerners took to the sea like, well, wolves to water. The she-wolf physically vomited over the railing, and the boy looked alarmingly green as little Nymeria.

The little dragon seemed to have taken a fancy to the boy, though the same couldn’t be said for the boy to the dragon. Prince Jon fell asleep during the night and woke up to two large, slitted eyes staring him down, and promptly wheeled backward into the bulkhead. Tyrion laughed.

“She’s taken a shine to you,” he said. “Unfortunately, perhaps. Dragons rarely afford you the luxury of refusal, when they offer you their company.”

He gestured to the cream-and-gold, sharing Tyrion’s small lap with his royal mother, who had her head wedged in the crook between his arm and his torso. Daenerys could sleep through anything, Tyrion had learned. Though it was rare that she chose her husband for a pillow.

Not that he objected.

“Are you mute?” he asked, when the boy offered no reply.

“No,” said the boy, sullen, reddening again.

Tyrion studied the prince, wondering if it was a flicker of jealousy he saw in those eyes, as the boy watched him and the princess, now curled into his side.

“Did you like King’s Landing?” Tyrion asked.

The boy’s head snapped up, the solemn mouth deepening into its customary frown.

“It was alright,” he mumbled. “My father—”

Tyrion smiled. “Yes, your father.”

He’d heard all about Rhaegar. He’d even spoken to him once or twice. Though outwardly polite, Tyrion knew from Dany that the King had a deeper, more unpleasant side that he reserved for his closest friends and family.

The Prince fell silent.

“It always seemed to me,” Tyrion said. “That you were rather second-best in that department. Forgive me, but the King treated you like a bastard.”

That got the boy’s attention.

“I’m no bastard,” he said hotly. “I’m my father’s trueborn son.”

“Is that so? The gossips of King’s Landing said you were conceived before your mother was cloaked.”

The boy looked honestly angry now, and some small part of Tyrion was pleased with those pale fists, the narrowed eyes. A fine princely temper showing itself at last.

_I said I did not dwell on unkind words. I never said I would not repay them._

The boy settled back against the bulkhead.

“It is cruel of you to say so,” he muttered, but the remark was toothless.  _Good._ The boy knew what he was paying for.

“My dear lord father is as paternal as yours, I’m afraid,” said Tyrion, settling his left hand on his dragon’s neck. “He taught me to always strike first.”

The boy looked down, saying nothing.

“Though I prefer to think of it as, strike where you are weakest.”

Jon stared at him; Tyrion cocked his head. He knew the prince was uncomfortable—the gesture, he knew, brought out his mismatched eyes.

(“The Stranger’s eyes, they are,” said his septa, once. But of course, his royal wife was born under similar circumstances, and her eyes were both violet, and no one said things like that to  _her_.)

“What do you mean?”

“Just this,” said Tyrion. “If they call you bastard, then that is what you must be.”

“How do you know that?”

Tyrion raised his hands and looked down at his body. “What do you see?”

 “Dany’s lord husband,” said the boy. The apple in his throat was bobbing— an obvious swallow.

_His face gives everything away_ , thought Tyrion, fascinated.  _As does his lady mother’s. Must be a trait of the Northmen._

Then he chuckled. “What you see is a dwarf. And if I hadn’t had the good fortune to wed this lovely young princess here, that might be all you would ever see.”

Jon looked away, embarrassed.

“There’s no need for that. I am what I am. And you are what you are as well. So let us admit it to ourselves, and wield it like swords in the face of any who would put us down.”

Again, the boy was silent.

 “And they tell me you are quite good with a sword,” Tyrion ventured.

Finally, that got Jon to meet his eyes again, a hint of pride showing in the midst of apprehension.  His lower lip protruded slightly, like a child’s.

“I am sorry, you know,” said Jon.

“For what? You were only speaking the truth.”

“No…”

“Yes,” said Tyrion, uncomfortable with the way the boy was looking at him. For a world full of people who proclaimed his ugliness at every turn, they certainly liked to stare at him a lot. He’d never asked for it, either— it came free.

“I’m sorry,” said the boy again.

Tyrion was irritated. “Stop apologizing. Or I shall hit you upside the head, the way I am sure your royal father does from time to time.”

The dragon in his lap stirred and gave one of the short, high-pitched noises he tended to make.

Looking cowed, the prince slunk back the corner he’d been occupying with his mother.

Tyrion leaned back, frowning at Brightroar. If he hadn’t known better, he’d say the little beast had a way of sensing his moods, and when his own temper flared, the dragon was not far behind.

Then Lyanna Stark descended the steps above them into the berth, her skirts carrying with them the pleasant scent of the sea. The she-wolf, with her long dark hair and hauntingly gaunt face—she’d long intrigued Tyrion. She was like a ghost or wraith, one of those fabulous creatures that lined the margins of the illustrated manuscripts.

“Why are you two awake?” she asked, her voice sharp as Tyrion imagined a mother’s should be.

“The same question would seem to apply to you, my lady,” Tyrion said.

“Needed a bit of air,” she said. “I was talking with that sellsword.”

“And what words of love did the sellsword find to woo the Queen of Love and Beauty?”

Lyanna shook her head. “It’s a good thing you kept that tongue under wraps in King’s Landing.”

“My lady, I have said more scandalous things. It’s my nature, as I was just discussing with your prince. We dwarfs do have a legacy of saying whatever fool thing comes to mind.”

“ _Your Grace_.”

“Your Grace,” Tyrion corrected himself, smiling his most placating smile.  _The she-wolf has teeth after all._  “Forgive me, I was under the impression you were not to be Queen anymore. It’s part of the reason we are sitting on this ship, after all. That, and the charming animal in my lap—by which I do not mean my fair wife.”

“This morning,” Lyanna said. “I was asleep in my bed, with no knowledge of this adventure.”

As she spoke, Tyrion noticed her teeth had a yellow, wolfish cast to them.

“’Adventure?’ A grand term for our condition, wouldn’t you say?”

“Quite.” From the set of her jaw Tyrion could tell he was testing the limits of her patience.

Still—

“You could have refused the offer.”

“And miss out on the pleasure of your company, my young lord of Lannister?” Lyanna said. “How could I?”

Tyrion found himself smiling.  _She is quick, this one._

“Not to mention,” he continued. “You are now the third living person in the world to have seen a dragon.”

With that, he opened skin of wine he’d hidden in their sac. The smell spread quickly in the small cargo hold, enveloping them all.

Lyanna’s eyes widened. “That is an interesting definition of ‘preparation.’”

Tyrion grinned and poured her the first glass. “No better way to pass the hours.”

 “I can think of a few,” the she-wolf murmured, eying him suspiciously.

“It’s not poisoned,” Tyrion said when Lyanna left her glass untouched.

“Why not?” Lyanna asked, lifting her chin coolly. “Lure the Northern Queen to the middle of the sea, feed her poison, and return her corpse to the Targaryen King.”

Tyrion paused, considering. “A dastardly plot. But alas, I am not my father.”

_Though I could be, were he not so much taller than me._

“No? Then who was it that threatened the crew with their lives only hours ago?”

“If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have threatened them, now, would I? I should depend upon them to ferry us home.”

“Pentos is a city of gold,” Lyanna said suddenly, looking at Tyrion with guarded eyes. “You should feel right at home there.”

 

“On the contrary,” Tyrion said. “I am told it is a city of cheese.”

“Cheese?”

“Did my fair wife not tell you? You are to make a friend today, Your Grace: our benefactor, a cheesemonger, among other things. We will be safe there. Men who sell cheese are not known for their involvement in foreign plots.”

“However—” Tyrion took a small pouch out from his sack. “Let us hope it is a city of gold as well, for I’m afraid my lord father guards the lion’s share of what you see here.” 

Lyanna raised an eyebrow. “What does your lord father make of this voyage?”

“Little. At least, none we are like to hear.”

The coin purse jingled pleasingly as he returned it to the sack between his knees. He’d spoken the truth, it was not enough to sustain them, this gold, which consisted of whatever he’d been able to steal from the Rock.

_But it is not gold we need, not truly, but arms, and ships, to protect us should this plan fail._

_That, and time to pass faster._

Tyrion looked down at the dragons asleep in their mother’s arms. Rhaella was blowing puffs of smoke into the briny air, in a parody of what would one day be dragonflame.

He offered the skin of wine to Lyanna for another glass, and she accepted it, through she took only one fast swig.

When he reached out to retake it, she held it just out of his reach, corking it with a cold smile.

“I just learned from your sellsword friend,” she said, “That we will make landfall in the morning.”

Nodding to Jon, she added, “It is past time for you both to be asleep.”

Jon looked sullen—Tyrion decided he always looked sullen—but he settled obediently beneath the blankets.

“Dream well,” Lyanna said. She shot another pointed look at Tyrion, before rolling over beside Jon, her hand on her son’s shoulder.

“Of course, my lady.” He smiled, one last show of teeth. “I dream small dreams.”

 

 

\-- 

\--

\--

 

_A Lannister always pays his debts._

_First you pay in wine—the language of the court, you’d learned, of the eunuch in his fluttering robes, the uncorking of secrets, falling into the open with a pop and hiss._

_Then you pay in gold, taken from the hollows below Casterly Rock by men paid less than the gold they saw every day— men with hard faces who hated you on sight, you who were softer and smaller than they, yet worth so much more._

_Then if all else fails, and you have nothing left to give, you give your blood. When they lay your neck bare before the executioner, you worry that when they kill you, your blood will be as red as anyone else’s—not gold, like your lord father’s, not green, like the monster of the children’s tales— but red, and too common to make a difference._

  


_Your sister is screaming._

_But the blood is not yours. This is a crime almost older than you are._

_The blood gathers in the hem of your sister’s gown, and she opens the door to your bedroom, a terrible black silhouette from one of your nightmares, but all too real, the shadow with wine on her breath, as she climbs into bed with you and traps you with her heavy arms and lays her golden hands around your throat._

It should have been you, _she says_.

_And it is all you, the sound you hear is you, yourself, struggling furiously to resist._

_With one hand she chokes you, with the other hand she closes your mouth. There is bright red burning in your chest, and the starry glimmer of golden hair all around you, dangling in your eyes and covering your ears, until you feel dead, buried whole in your sister, and your last thought is_ how pretty she is, my golden sister, so pretty so pretty so… pretty.

_When you go still, she takes deep breaths, each sound like a crashed wave in your ear, howling and merciless._

_“It should have been you,” she whispers, settling against you. Your body is her throne now, the throne she wanted but never earned, and she takes it._

_“Rhaegar offered Father the chance to take you instead, but Jaime wouldn’t have it. Jaime…”_

_She buries her head in your hair, gold against gold._

_“Why was it you? You little beast. You monster. You were nothing beside him, I can’t even kiss you, I can’t even…”_

_But she does kiss you, planting her fingers around your throat and claiming your lips as a war prize, your unsteady, chapped lips of a child, and no matter how many times you will say to yourself that this never happened—a hundred times, a thousand—once all is forgotten by the light of day, the memory lingers, shapeless and dark and_ there _._

_The next day they will wake you and the servant women will fuss over you saying, “_ Lord Tyrion, it is good to see you well, you had a fever in the night _.” You are four, and not lord of anything, but you are already beginning to crackle with_ knowing _. You put on your very small shoes one at a time, and you pretend you do not see your sister, hands laced, penitent, as she comes in and kisses both your cheeks. You feel the memory like a vivisection down the chest, but your head, for once, is empty._

I am glad to see you survived your illness, brother, _she tells you._

 

 

\--

\--

\--

 

 

It was all lies, forever and ever, everyone and everything.

Tyrion had decided this when he was young, almost unconsciously, but it was proven true again and again to him throughout his time in King’s Landing. Though never the subject of the lies himself—even as the princess’s husband, he was elevated a mere step above the fool in the eyes of most members of the court— he’d seen a false word ruin lords like Lord Manderly, when it was found he aided the Greyjoys during the Rebellion. And the ones who spread those lies—the mute little birds Lord Varys was said to employ— had turned out quite loud.

The lie he and Daenerys had told was not dissimilar; it was quiet as well, but it wasn’t about some fat lord of White Harbor, but no less a person than the northern Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men.

And it was told to Elia Martell.

As Tyrion stood on deck the next morning, awake when all the others were sleeping, as he always was, he wondered at how little anxiety he felt over the lie, now that Lyanna Stark slept safely below deck with her son beside her.

And he trusted a lie, the way he’d never the trusted the truth. It was all lies, and he’d learned to work within them.

_To love them, even_.

The truth was wounding, a spear through the chest— _wield it like a sword,_ as he’d told Jon. But a lie was safe, and lies could hide you.

“They call my brother Doran ‘the grass that hides the viper,’” Queen Elia had told him during their last conversation. She had looked at him with her too-wise eyes, suddenly looking not unlike a viper herself, and said, “Your wife is the viper and you are the grass.”

“I am?” Then, he’d fancied himself the Viper. He’d only recently met the man himself, and found him disarmingly charismatic and—a rarity in King’s Landing (or _anywhere_ , he thought sourly), positively disposed toward Tyrion.

But the Viper was too dangerous to befriend. He trusted Elia, but only to a point. Not enough to tell her Lyanna was coming to Essos. Although everyone liked Daenerys, the Martells were not fond of Targaryens.

And these days, he was almost a Targaryen himself.

At least, that was the way the magister would see it, no doubt.

Tyrion grinned and leaned over the railing, watching the coastline shift and grow larger in the distance.

They would be delayed now— rough weather and winds had turned against them, leaving them to cling to the coastline from Braavos to Pentos. Hopefully Illyrio was a forgiving man. He’d seemed like he might be, the night of their wedding, but he was not Westerosi, and Tyrion—as much as it bothered him to admit it—couldn’t fathom his role in this game.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a voice behind him.

“If you go over, I’m not going after you.”

Tyrion chuckled, recognizing Bronn the sellsword. The rain they’d had earlier might have been the first bath the man had seen in years.

“What if I paid in advance?”

The sellsword shrugged. “There’s beasts in the water. The likes of you wouldn’t even be a full meal. They’d want me for seconds.”

“Actually, it’s unlikely there’s anything substantial in these waters. We’re too close to shore.”

“No.” Bronn shook his head. “I value my life.”

“We have that in common,” said Tyrion, tilting his head. “Tell me, Bronn. Do have a home?”

“No.”

“No? How about a father?”

Bronn snorted.

“Better off without one. Surely you have a mother?”

“She’s a whore.”

At that, Tyrion laughed out loud.

“A sellsword who grew up in a brothel. Well done.”

If possible, Bronn looked even less friendly than usual.

“Rather my mother a whore,” he said, “Than a servant in some lord’s castle, spraying perfume on some lord’s shit and wiping his white arse.”

Tyrion smiled ruefully. “Fair enough. I’ve done my fair share of shit-wiping in King’s Landing, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone else.”

The rest of the ship was waking up around them—both the crew, casting suspicious glances down to the hold where a tendril of smoke escaped into the sky (hearth fire, not dragons, Tyrion knew, though he enjoyed the crewmen’s look of apprehension), but also the passengers, which included the bleary-eyed boy of nine coming toward them now.

The look on the boy’s face when he uttered the word “shit,” made Tyrion want to change the subject. Despite his time in King’s Landing, Podrick Payne was as wide-eyed as a boy of six.

“Hello there. Do you know where we are?” he asked.

Looking at the ground, the boy shook his head.

 “Take a guess, lad,” said Bronn.

“We have been delayed,” said Tyrion, when the boy wouldn’t answer. “It’s safer to trail the coast. We are likely not far from Pentos, although we had to track north to avoid the worst of the storm. With luck, we could end up in Braavos.”

The boy’s eyes were large as dinner rolls.

Tyrion laughed. “Unlikely, however. Even with the diversion we’re much too far south. Do you know where Braavos is?”

No response from the boy, not even a shake of the head. Tyrion sighed.

“The very northeastern tip. And Tyrosh and Myr are both south of Pentos, though Myr is on the interior of the bay and Tyrosh is on the southern coast, halfway between Storm’s End and Dorne.”

The boy looked out at the bay, curiosity overcoming his fear for a moment.

Encouraged, Tyrion went on, though aware he was rapidly losing the sellsword’s attention. “Can you name the other Free Cities?” He did not wait for a response. “There are nine Free Cities in total. The other five are Lys, Norvos, Lorath, Qohor, and Volantis.”

“Myself, I hope to see Lys,” added Bronn.

Of course, the famed pillow-houses of Lys: Tyrion knew full well why the man would wish they were sailing for Lys instead.

“The entertainment there, I hear, is excellent,” he allowed. “Perhaps after you’re finished accompanying us, you’ll be able to experience it.”

“Each of the Free Cities is fascinating in its right,” he said. “From the canals of Braavos, to Myrish glasscraft, and Tyroshi brandy and armor.”

“What is Pentos known for, my lord?” said Podrick Payne, so softly Tyrion almost couldn’t hear him.

“Gold,” he replied. “I’m looking forward to seeing the city. Something tells me Pentos will love a Lannister.”

The boy smiled—actually smiled—at that, and Tyrion congratulated himself on his success.

He wondered then, what would happen if he locked Jon and Podrick in a room together. Who would talk first?

He could make a wager with Bronn on it later.

 

\--

\--

The Northern queen had adjusted surprisingly well to the reality of dragons, he thought as he descended into the hold.

Oh, there’d been the initial shock of seeing a living creature so long thought dead. But that passed quickly in the close warmth of the ship cabin, especially once she saw Nymeria curled up beside her son.

“You take care of him,” she’d whispered to the thing, which looked at her dumbly, with slitted eyes as green as its scales.

It had been the dead of night, and no doubt Lyanna didn’t think anyone had heard her.

As he came down the hold she was awake, and humming a song he didn’t recognize while she folded her nightgown from the night before.

“I don’t know that one,” he told her.

“Which one? Oh,” she said, turning to him. Her face immediately adopted the wary look she’d greeted him with since she first met him.

_Gods, woman, we are rescuing you._

“It’s from the North,” she said, brisk as the ocean air. “Manderly Bay. I heard it from a traveling troupe when I was a child.”

“You sing it well,” he said cautiously, but it only seemed to irritate her more.

“I’ve half-forgotten the verses,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”

Tyrion said nothing to that. He knew what she was thinking and didn’t want to be the one to dissuade her.

But to his surprise, she had something else in mind. She gestured to her son, who was still asleep and snoring slightly, his hands clutching at his wild black curls as if having a nightmare.

“When we reach Pentos, I will stay long enough to see you off and take the measure of the Magister Illyrio. But then I will board the next ship for Winterfell.  I don’t doubt the war will come with me. But I don’t want Jon to see it. He’s only a boy.”

Lyanna looked down at the sleeping prince, and Tyrion was struck by their resemblance to one another. Jon might have sprung fully-formed from the Northern queen, the Warrior from the Mother, without any input at all from the king.

“I leave him in your hands, yours and Daenerys’s,” she said, fixing him with her icy gaze. “I don’t need to tell you that should anything happen to him, you will never give the Princess children. Is that understood?”

Tyrion blinked. “Very well.”

Her face softened as she became absorbed in her thoughts. “I worry about my brother’s children,” she said. “They will not deserve any of this either, but my place is with my brother.”

“Your sister as well,” she added, coming out of her reverie. “I will send her your regards. You must miss her.”

Tyrion smiled inwardly. “Yes, yes I would like that.”

Lyanna smiled at him for the first time. “It’s foolish we even have to worry about the prospect of another war. Our families are deeply intertwined. We share the same nieces and nephews, the two of us.”

“So we do.” Tyrion had never considered it before.

“They say our nieces are more beautiful than I was at that age. The middle daughter, Sansa, sings and the youngest daughter, Arya, rides. I hope to ride with her.” 

All of this had the air of something long-suppressed coming to the surface. How many hours in the capital had Lyanna filled by thinking of her family in the North?

_Their family._ Tyrion shook his head, amazed at the smallness of the world.

“The oldest girl, Myrcella—they say she favors you.”

Tyrion shuddered. “Gods, I hope not.”

Lyanna tilted her head, a smile playing on her lips. “Is that your father speaking? Or you?”

Under her gaze, Tyrion felt almost as exposed as he felt around his father.

“I never liked your father,” she said bluntly.

_Then you will not like my sister either._

“I’m sorry if that offends you,” she went on, but there was not a trace of apology in her voice.

 “No, please, tell me,” Tyrion said, unable to keep the bite from his tone. He’d never met anyone who was this unguarded and free with her thoughts. “It is not an unpopular opinion.”

 “But in spite of him, I have always felt your family suffered more than their due.”

Tyrion inclined his head.

Her expression was still soft, her face ashen in the grey light.   “Do you remember your brother?”

_Strong arms holding him, a white cloak on a stone floor, a voice,_ w _ry and warm_ _and familiar:_ Look, brother, I have brought you a toy.

“No.”

Lyanna seemed surprised. “You were four or five, if I am correct in counting.”

“Four, but I don’t recall it,” Tyrion said. “I read a book one time—fascinating, written by Yann, the celebrated maester of the last century—that posited the idea most of what we remember before the age of five is a fabrication. Created from the stories others have told us of ourselves when we were that age.”

“That’s a shame,” Lyanna said after a moment. “Jaime was a good boy. Honorable.”

“Good, honorable boys do not always fare well,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, it sounds as though we may be reaching port.”

 

\--

\--

 

They weren’t of course. But Tyrion needed an excuse to get away from that dim, smoky cabin and breathe the air of the sea again.

Daenerys was on deck as well. He wondered if she’d been there the whole time, as she hadn’t been in the hold with Lyanna and Jon and he hadn’t noticed her when he was with Pod and Bronn.

She stood near the prow, a bright figure under the rising sun.

_She is not a Lannister, she is Aerys’s daughter. You may wed her, but you dishonor your brother’s memory if you think you can ever love her._

His father’s voice echoed in his head. Tyrion shut his eyes to clear it, but it was there, loud as a cannon, insistent as a war drum.

_“And when the time comes,”_ Lord Tywin had told him.

_“When the time comes… we will repay our debt to House Targaryen fourfold._

_And we will start with her._

_Is that clear, Tyrion?”_

“There you are,” she said, coming toward him, her face breaking into a grin. “I thought you’d come up to the deck but when I came up you were nowhere to be found.”

“I was down in the hold with the wolves.”

“The wolves? Jon is as much a Southron as we are.”

Tyrion quashed the sense of irritation that always accompanied any mention by Daenerys of her childhood friend.

“Anyone can see the boy is ruled far more by his Stark blood, sweetling.”

Daenerys’s eyes narrowed—she hated when he called her that—but even in her own irritation, he marveled at how trusting she was, how open, and he felt a slight twinge of guilt at the thought.

And how easily her hand brushed his, the slight pressure of her fingers on his wrist sending a rush of pleasure to his brain.

_Fool, fool, fool_ , his father’s voice said. _Lannisters don’t act like fools._

Besides, he felt her touches lingered too long sometimes, like the night before they left King’s Landing when her hands seemed to find his every deformity.

_Does it fascinate you, sweetling?_

_To touch something like me?_

“Lady Lyanna told me something interesting,” he said matter-of-factly to Daenerys, pulling his hand away from hers.

“Did she?”

“She said she intends to leave Jon with us after she is certain he will be safe, and return to the North herself.”

Dany frowned. “That is not a good plan.”

“You’ll have to talk her out of it yourself. I tried my best.”

That was a lie, but it was unlikely, in any case, that he could have convinced the she-wolf to do anything she didn’t want to do.

“We risked everything to take her with us,” Dany said, looking down at the floor of the deck.

“I know, my dear.”

She looked back at him, the concern on her face deepening. “If the queen goes to Winterfell, my brother will not rest until he finds her.”

Tyrion said nothing. The bond between the Targaryen siblings was elusive, but it was still there—surprising, in fact, how strongly it flared up at times. He wondered what Daenerys would do, given the choice between Lyanna and Jon, and her own brothers.

It was a question he asked himself as well.

But with Daenerys, he did not know the answer.

“Well, there’s still time to convince her to stay,” Tyrion said. “I’ll have Magister Illyrio pour us very strong wine, and she’ll miss the first ship out in the morning.”

He was sure this would pull a smile from her, but she still looked worried.

“We’re running out of time,” she said.

And then gestured to a place behind him.

Tyrion turned.

There, close enough to touch, almost, were the golden gates of the city of Pentos, thrown wide to greet the bay, and behind them the Four Towers, each raised by a different ancient magister.

“Pentos,” he breathed.

As a child, he’d dreamed of visiting the Free Cities, but once he settled into King’s Landing, he’d largely forgotten them.

Now they came roaring back, alive and colorful as the city behind him.

Dany shook her head, smiling. “Next you’re going to tell me how it was founded.”

“There was a coalition of four powerful men who called themselves magisters…”

“Let’s call the others,” she said, cutting him off, before he could tell her the rest of the founding.

 

\--

\--

 

The Pentoshi harbor was quieter than the ones he knew in Westeros—more well-organized than the fleet of fishing boats in Lannisport, and far less populated than the harbor in King’s Landing.

As the crewmen steered them to port, Tyrion counted an assembly of five men in full armor, mounted on horses.

“Why are they wearing armor?” Jon asked.

The four of them were standing on deck shivering in the light drizzle that had set in around the bay. It was colder in Pentos than it was in King’s Landing, although they were further south.

“I don’t know,” his mother told him.

There was a great shudder as the ship met the harbor.

Tyrion winced. “Fine crew we have.”

Illyrio’s men were setting up gangplanks to the shore. Behind them, Magister Illyrio himself, his two-pronged beard freshly oiled, and his hands steepled like a sage.

Tyrion led them down the gangway. “Magister,” he said politely when he reached the bottom, and bowed. The others followed suit, although the look on Jon’s face told Tyrion the boy didn’t know why they needed to bow.

Though the magister’s men stared at Tyrion, Illyrio only had eyes for the princess. With an awkward, heavy movement, he knelt before her and kissed her hand.

Then he saw Lyanna.

He leaned back, his expression enigmatic. “Lyanna Stark,” he said. A ripple went through the men—sellswords, Tyrion could tell now— as they recognized the famous name.

“This is unexpected,” Illyrio said, stroking one half of his beard.

A tense moment passed among them, and then finally Illyrio added, “But not unwelcome. Welcome, Your Grace, and we hope your find our hospitality to be adequate.”

“I am sure I will,” Lyanna said, eyeing the horses behind Illyrio.

“Beautiful stallions,” she said politely, as one of the sellswords offered her a mount. But she declined his hand, climbing into the saddle on her own with surprising grace.

They exchanged looks, but when the sellswords moved aside for them, they climbed on a horse as well, followed by a disgruntled Jon, confined to his own horse in the rear of the little party beside Illyrio and his litter.

Tyrion, feeling the horse shift nervously beneath them, wished fervently he could have shared the man’s litter.

A horseman, he was not.

Illyrio, catching Tyrion’s eye, smirked at him, as though he knew exactly what Tyrion was thinking. _Damn him_.

“You certainly know how to welcome guests, Magister,” said Dany. She was running her fingers through the horse’s silver mane, a look of delight blooming on her face. “This one is beautiful.”

“It is nothing,” said the Magister. He pushed back the flap of his litter as he talked to her, a careless gesture. “I am glad we were able to welcome you, given your unexpected guest.”

The ride through the city streets lasted longer than Tyrion would have liked, but Daenerys proved to be skilled at controlling the animal they were riding, so he was able to ignore the nausea building in his stomach to take in the Sunrise Gate, pointing to the Rhoyne.

Intellectually, he knew the Free Cities were no older then Westeros, but Pentos felt like it, although the towers were well-maintained, the coast—at this distance, a blinding wall of sunlight on tile—felt old. He was sure the effect would be greater in Braavos, and wondered if the Magister would grant them leave to explore the continent.

For some reason, the thought of asking made him apprehensive. _We can ask._ _We’re not prisoners_ , he reminded himself.

Illyrio’s manse when they reached it, gave an impression of immense but modest wealth. Smaller than its name would suggest in Westeros, Tyrion knew land in Pentos did not come cheap. Especially impressive was the line of bravos waiting with blades on their hips to welcome them into the gates.

Tyrion looked at them, his curiousity roused by how much they looked alike, all with smooth, round faces.

_Eunuchs._

But that didn’t change the fact that their weapons looked used, as though they’d seen battle, nor it did it offset the row of iron spikes decorating the manse’s roofline and walls.

Lyanna was watching Illyrio closely. Tyrion would have dearly loved to know what was going through her mind, but there was no time.

Illyrio ushered them off their horses and into the atrium, a lovely enclosure full of the scent of orange trees.

“The magisters of the city have prepared a dinner in your honor tonight,” said Illyrio, with a tone that suggested it was some kind of inconvenience. “I have provided the proper attire for this. If you would show the prince and princess to their rooms to get ready.” He indicated his servant, and nodded to Lyanna. “The same for you, Your Grace.”

It wasn’t until Illyrio looked at him that Tyrion realized he wasn’t included in that directive.

“As for you, we’ll leave the ladies to prepare for the evening.”

Tyrion smirked at Jon, who was scowling behind Illyrio’s back at his classification among the ‘ladies.’

 

\--

\--

 

The manse seemed endless, but eventually Illyrio led him to another inner courtyard, this one decorated with a statue of a handsome youth and a cyvasse table.

Tyrion felt almost chastised by the statue, its height and rugged shoulders, and Illyrio smiled at him like he knew that.

“Believe it or not,” Illyrio said. “That is of me, in my younger days.”

Tyrion stared in astonishment.

“Age will be kinder to you, no doubt. I had further to fall.”

Tyrion decided he did not much like this man—not for the off-handed insult, but that it _was_ off-handed. Something about that bothered him. How could such a man, stinking of wealth and perfume, ally himself to someone like Elia Martell? He could not even imagine them in the same room together.

But the cyvasse table was the same.

“I thought you might keep me company while we wait for the dinner. I hear you’re a good player.”

Tyrion allowed a half-smile. “There are worse, certainly.”

“Come, my boy,” Illyrio said. The chair was half his size, and creaked as he sat down.

Tyrion watched him line up the pieces and make his opening gambit.

“Is there a reason you wanted to talk to me alone?”

Illyrio did not look up, keeping his eyes on the cyvasse board as he made his play. He chuckled as he knocked off two of Tyrion’s knights. Tyrion winced. 

“You’re fourteen, aren’t you?”

“Sixteen.” Tyrion’s reply was lightning-quick.

“Sixteen.” Illyrio’s eyes moved to Tyrion’s face. “A boy.”

Tyrion bristled, but Illyrio laughed, softer this time.

“The boy who played cyvasse with the world.”

Tyrion could not think of a reply. For a moment there was nothing but the scent of the orange trees and the lapping of the little waterfall behind the statue.

“This is all your doing, isn’t it?” Illyrio asked him. “The Queen?”

“Actually, you have my wife to thank for that,” Tyrion said. “It was her plan. I tried to dissuade her.”

Illyrio made another move, but this one Tyrion blocked.

The magister leaned forward, lacing his hands.

“I have never lived in King’s Landing,” he said. “But I know quite a bit about Westerosi. You are a fascinating people. Our largest trading partner in the Free Cities.”

“An unequal relationship, considering the Iron Bank owns a large share of royal wealth.”

“Don’t be coy. Lannister gold underwrites as much of the throne as any Braavosi banker.”

 Tyrion shrugged.

“What I find surprising,” Illyrio said, “Is the freedom your lord father has allowed the king.”

“Not so surprising, considering my brother put a sword in the back of the previous king,” Tyrion said flatly. “Perhaps you know less than you think you do about the Westerosi.”

“Cheeky,” said Illyrio, but there was approval in his voice. “Your brother… that’s a debt you’ll collect, surely? With interest.”

Tyrion stared, suddenly aware he’d just walked into Illyrio’s trap. _Both on the board and off it_.

“That’s my father’s business, not mine,” he said, hoping to close that line of conversation.

But Illyrio smirked at him.

“Disappointing. I’d hoped to see more of him in you. Instead you remind me more of your sister.”

Tyrion ignored him, focusing on making his play.

“You know,” Illyrio said. “It’s time for you to get ready for the dinner as well.”

“But the game’s not finished.”

“I think we know which way it’s going,” Illyrio said, waving a languid hand.

 

\--

\--

 

He came back to the room appointed for him to find Daenerys already dressed, in a floor-length white silk gown that left little to the imagination.

“Do you like it?” she asked when he walked in.

Tyrion’s eyes narrowed. “Every man at the dinner will know the exact size and shade of your nipples.”

 “Is there something wrong with that?” she said, her lips curling as if his irritation amused her.

“I don’t share well.”

Her eyes flashed, then slowly—making sure he watched every movement—she pulled down the lower half of the slip under her gown. It fell to the floor with a shimmer, leaving her figure bare under the gossamer dress.

Tyrion felt the blood drain from his face.

“Perhaps I should go like this then.” She uncovered one breast, nestling the extra fabric around her waist, one whole breast exposed, like a Qartheen.

He groaned low in his chest and moved toward her.

She pushed him away.

“Daenerys, please.”

“No,” she said, annoyed. “We are in Essos, so we will follow their fashions and laws.”

“You are still a princess of Westeros. It is not appropriate.”

Dany pulled up her slip to her waist, but the exposed breast stayed, with the flimsy dress wrapped the same way, in Qartheen style.

“Might as well go naked,” Tyrion muttered.

He regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but it was too late. Her eyes went cold.

“I left Westeros in defiance of my brother, the king. Do not think you have the power to command me.”

“Daenerys—”

“No.” She turned back towards the looking-glass, and drew a line in black over each eyelid.

“I did not mean—”

Two of their dragons hissed and spat. She reached out a hand to Rhaella and cooed to her, avoiding Tyrion’s gaze.

Tyrion sighed. “Alright. You can pretend to be a Qartheen.”

 

\--

\--

 

As it turned out, the dinner was held in yet another of Illyrio’s courtyards, this one large but high-walled, its spires draped with white banners and staffed by more of the magister’s eunuchs. Each guard stood by his spire and stared down at them with the barest hint of a smile. Tyrion supposed this was intended to be welcoming.

Two long banquet tables were set with three roasted pigs and a large pheasant.

Illyrio invited Lyanna to sit beside him in the place of honor.

“Thank you, Magister,” she said as she accepted his hand. She caught Tyrion’s eye, dressed in light blue. On her head was a crown he’d never seen before, and it looked heavy, like it was made of iron, and out-of-place in the gauzy summer light.

The other guests—other magisters, Tyrion supposed—were filing in, and one by one they stopped to kiss Lyanna’s hand and bow to Daenerys, who was standing behind Illyrio and Lyanna. Tyrion stifled a laugh. Next to them, she looked like their odd, silver-haired daughter.  

But the magisters themselves interested Tyrion the most, the old men whispering among their friends and bowing to each other, their smiles sliding off the moment they turned away; they reminded him of his father’s lords. A couple of them looked at him in distaste.

Tyrion’s mood was already sour, but now it was even worse.

Yes, they were exactly like his father’s lords, but sycophants looked the same everywhere.  He noticed the way they deferred to Illyrio, though; the fat man seemed to impress them.

Well, Tyrion supposed it was good they were lodging with the most powerful magister.

He milled around the party for a while, hoping to overhear an interesting conversation. But it was nothing—more pointless flattery, delivered with elaborate ceremony.

Within a few minutes, he’d managed to work out a hierarchy. One of the men who’d looked at him was Illyrio’s closest friend. He knew from the way the Magister’s eyes kept finding him in the crowd.

“What is a boy looking for?” came a voice from somewhere to his right.

Tyrion startled. “I didn’t see anyone there.”

It was Illyrio’s friend, the man who was speaking to him. He seemed to come out of nowhere, a tall man with a cat-like air and hair that was half red and half white.

“A boy was lost in thought.”

“This is a new place to me,” Tyrion said, staring at the man.

“A boy will learn soon enough.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but—”

“A man has business with the magister.”

The man pushed past him, leaving Tyrion with a strange sense of unease. Where were their dragons? Had Daenerys left the window open when they left?

He watched the retreating back of the man with the red and white hair, trying to place his accent. It was familiar, but—

Braavosi. Of course. 

Tyrion felt pleased with himself for locating it. But there was something else important about him, something about the reflexive pronouns, the fluid way he moved through the crowd toward the magister…

A hand was on his shoulder.

He froze, but it was just Podrick Payne.

“Gods,” he swore. “If one more person appears behind me, I’ll—“

The boy’s eyes looked round and terrified.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” the boy said, his voice high and fast. “But’s it’s Lady Lyanna. She says there’s something wrong. She says we have to leave.”

Tyrion caught saw Lyanna across from the crowd. Behind her were a dozen guards. How were there so many? It seemed excessive.

Almost in unison, the magisters looked up, frozen in place, their wine glasses poised halfway to their lips.

There was the man with the red and white hair, the Braavosi. He was near Lyanna—too near for Tyrion’s liking—and in the next moment, he _changed_ , his face changing smoothly from cat-like and handsome to ugly and hook-nosed.

“A Faceless man,” Tyrion said.

He felt very calm for a moment, a heavy, wild calm like the kind that preceded a storm in King’s Landing.

Then, in the next moment, a wave of bravos came pouring down from their spires, descending in a mass upon the magisters at the banquet table, holding a blade to every throat.

Then they seized Lyanna and Daenerys.

It happened so fast Tyrion’s mind went numb, but he could feel himself moving, urged on by Podrick—he thought he saw Jon running—

_We’ve been betrayed_ , he thought bitterly. It was his last thought.

He looked up and saw Daenerys, bare-chested now, a blade at her throat and her hair a silver knot in a bravo’s fist.

_Daenerys_.

Then the world burned down around her.

 

\--

\--


	10. Arya, Cersei, Catelyn, Myrcella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alliances are formed, and tested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, good readers. So. If you're looking for a good explanation why this hasn't updated in three years, there's... not one. Writer's block and Real Life each played a role, along with a much-needed hiatus from fandom. But this story is not dead and I hope never to take that kind of break from it again. Thank you so, so much for reading! And thank you for your patience.

**Arya Stark**

When she first opened her eyes, it took her a moment to remember.

Then she groaned.

“Seven hells,” Arya said.

“ _Arya_ ,” said her sister’s voice from the other side of the room.

“Sorry,” Arya muttered, but only because it was Myrcella’s voice.

Arya said rude things sometimes, but she didn’t mean to. (But Mother agreed they were often true. But Mother would tell her, “There are women who will dislike you for speaking the truth.”)

She hadn’t meant to speak out loud. Her sister was to be wed today and it was, after all, an exciting time for her, even though Arya would rather be waking up to another day of playing knights with Mycah.

Myrcella sat up, rubbing her eyes. The Stark girls were sharing a room before Myrcy’s wedding to make room for their guests. The Arryns had arrived late the night before, leaving Mother and Father to look after Rickon.

_Myrcella’s wedding._

Arya still couldn’t believe it.

Her sister, who was so bright and quick—who could sometimes be guilted into sword-fighting with Arya when Sansa wasn’t looking—was to be wed.

She was only thirteen. Almost fourteen, but all the same—if they did the same thing to her, Arya had only three years of freedom left.

Mother assured her Myrcella’s situation was unusual. There were mysterious rumors flying about: flurries of concerned whispering each night after dark. Arya didn’t pay close attention to it, but it made her uneasy to see her mother uneasy. Nothing frightened Mother.

Arya opened the curtain to the window. Sansa moaned in her sleep as a beam of light fell over her, but did not wake up.

Arya gasped.

There was a whole army out there!

“Myrcella,” she hissed. “Come see.”

Myrcy obliged and moved to stand beside her in front of the window. She did not gasp but Arya heard her little intake of breath.

Arya sat up for a look. A sea of tents and blue fluttering flags seemed to fade into the deep blue of the sky. The Arryns, she knew, but also smaller encampments of what looked like her father’s bannermen.

“That’s a lot of people for a wedding,” Myrcella muttered, closing the curtain.

“Are you scared?”

“No,” Myrcella said, and if it was a lie, Arya couldn’t tell. Her sister’s face was as undisturbed as ever.

“Maybe there will be knights there,” said Arya, thinking. “Sansa, did you hear that?”

Sansa wrapped her pillow around her ears.

“Sansa, Sansa, Sansa!” Arya jumped on her sister’s bed.

“Stop,” came the reply from under the covers.

“Get up, Sansa.”

Arya sat on Sansa’s legs to see if that would get her sister awake.

“You’re a pain,” said Sansa, squirming underneath her.

“Both of you,” Myrcella said sharply. “Stop it.”

“She’s hurting me!”

“No, I’m not, you’re dramatic.”

Myrcella rubbed her face tiredly. “Stop or I’m telling Mother.”

Arya stopped and pulled herself off Sansa’s bed.

Sansa sat up. Just woken up, she wasn’t so pretty, just a small pale tangle of reddish hair. “Myrcella, can we come to the feast?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Arya was struck by how much older Myrcy looked all of a sudden. While Arya and Sansa were fighting, she’d been getting dressed, and with her voluminous skirts and neatly-combed hair, she looked like she could be a woman wed after all.

The servants were already starting to set up the feast in the great hall when the Stark girls came down for breakfast.

“Have a seat, my love,” she told her daughter, and Myrcella sat opposite her while Mother surveyed her with a critical eye.

“Where’s Father?” Sansa asked.

“With Lord Arryn, I expect,” Mother said. “It appears the Arryns are early risers… unlike you three.”

Mother gave her a look that was both fond and stern. Arya bit her lip and let her smile fade from her face.

“Who’s Jon Arryn?” she asked to change the subject, biting into a pastry.

“The Lord of the Vale,” Mother said. “The father of Myrcella’s betrothed.”

“What’s _his_ name again?”

“Robb. And his other son is named Bran, and his wife is Lady Catelyn. Mind your manners and please remember their names this time.”  

“Lady Catelyn is here?” Myrcella asked. Since they’d sat down, she’d spread jam on her bread but hadn’t touched it otherwise.

“A Tully,” Mother said, wrinkling her nose to indicate just what she thought of _them_. Arya wrinkled her nose too, though she’d never met any Tullys. She supposed she would meet some tonight.

Myrcella looked curious. “Does Lord Robb take after his father or his mother?”

“Mother,” said Mother. “And you should be thankful for that. Sadly, Lord Arryn is missing half his teeth.”

Sansa looked horrified at the thought.

“But the Arryns just arrived, why does she have to be wed so fast?” Arya demanded. “And why are there all the knights on the grounds? Are we having a tourney, Mother?”

Mother looked about to tell her off, but then something changed in her expression and she leaned forward as though to tell them something very interesting.

“Something has happened,” she said. “Your aunt has left King’s Landing.”

Sansa looked frightened, but Arya was just confused. Was that a good thing? A bad thing? She couldn’t tell.

Myrcella’s eyes widened as she turned the thought over in her mind. “That’s why we’re doing all this, isn’t it?”

Mother paused, then nodded. “You are helping us by wedding Lord Robb.”

Arya only had more questions. “Where is Lady Lyanna now?”

“We don’t know,” Mother said, but there was something odd about the way she said it.

“She’s with the Targaryen girl isn’t she?” Sansa said, so quietly Arya had to strain to hear. “The princess.”

“Sansa.” Mother’s voice was sharp as a rap across the knuckles. “We don’t know where she is.”

“But someone might think we do,” Myrcella said, as if it all made sense now. Mother ignored her words, and reached out to stroke her daughter’s hair.

“You must be brave,” she said. “I think you will like Lord Robb.”

She looked back at Arya. “Your sister is right. The King might be looking for her, and we must be ready when he does.”

 

\--

 

Soon after, a red-haired woman in dull blue robes appeared in the doorway of the Great Hall, followed by two boys and an old man.

It must be Lady Catelyn and the Arryns. It could be no one else, apart from the lack of klaxons and banners that would normally announce the arrival of a noble party.

Arya didn’t know much about courtly affairs and manners and all, so she watched her mother’s face. Mother knew what to do.

“Lady Catelyn is a woman who does not like to call attention to herself,” Mother said, something sharp and disapproving in her voice.

Her eyes were fixed on the woman’s mud-soaked gown.

Arya laughed.

Mother arched an eyebrow at her. “But neither do you, my wolfling.”

“I know, Mother.”

Neither Myrcella nor Sansa was listening, their eyes upon the Arryns. Followed by Lady Catelyn was a tall boy—

“That’s Lord Robb,” said Sansa, her eyes darting toward Myrcy.

Lord Robb was an exact copy of his mother, except for the beginnings of a beard along his jaw. But what struck her the most was his square, strong shoulders.

Noticing them looking, he came towards them. Arya reached out her elbow to nudge Myrcella, but her sister was shrinking backward.

 “My lady,” said the boy—Lord Robb. “It is lovely to meet you, but is it bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?”

“I should hope not,” said Myrcy. “For I am glad to meet you as well.”

His face flushed, and he coughed into his sleeve.

Arya turned to Myrcy, expecting her to laugh and blurt out one of her witty comments. But she was silent and wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“In the North girls see their bridegrooms all the time before the wedding,” said Mother. “Now that you two have made each other’s acquaintance, the wedding should be all the easier. Myrcella, why don’t you introduce your sisters?”

“I’m Arya,” Arya cut in, not waiting for her to take charge. She stuck out her hand to the older boy, and he bowed and kissed it.

Arya made a face, but Sansa broke into giggles.

Then Sansa’s face went as red as her hair as he kissed her hand too.

Then he stood back and threw out his arm to indicate his brother, a slight, brown-haired boy who looked to be about Arya’s age.

“This is Bran,” Lord Robb said, taking care to catch Arya’s eye. “Bran, Lady Arya.”

“I won’t kiss your hand,” the younger boy said quickly. Instead he took her offered hand and shook it, the way she’d seen her father do with visiting lords. A handshake, as among men.

Arya brightened, pleased by the gesture. “Bran’s short for Brandon, isn’t it?”

The boy nodded.

“That’s a Northern name,” Myrcella said, as Bran kissed her hand.

“My mother always liked it,” he said. “She picked it out when she was betrothed to your father’s brother Brandon, actually. It was done to honor him.”

“What a lovely gesture,” Mother said, but there was no gratitude in her voice.

“Thank you, my lady,” said Lord Robb, abashed. “We do not mean to give offense.”

“I am sure you did not,” said Mother.

Lady Catelyn, a look of discomfort crowding her features, called her sons to return to their table.

But breakfast was all laid out and untouched since they first sat down, so Arya grabbed a biscuit and stuffed it under her shirt before anyone could see, while her sisters’ and mother’s attention was still fixed on the Arryns.

 _It is a fine day today, if it does not rain_ , she thought to herself.

 

\--

 

**Cersei Lannister**

The Arryns were early.

Breaking fast was not a social event in the North, and it reflected poorly on Catelyn Arryn that she thought otherwise, inflicting herself and her children upon them before they were ready. There was still much to do before the wedding feast that night.

But then, a woman who would wear such a horrid gown to greet her son’s new family probably wouldn’t notice an unswept floor.

Catelyn Arryn was talking to Arya and Sansa, like the good little wife she was. Catelyn’s eyes fell on Cersei as she passed, and a small frown creased her features momentarily.

Cersei knew that look. She’d been the object of it since birth: envy.

A long time ago, Lady Catelyn might have been the Lady of Winterfell. She had already referenced the failed match in conversation.

 _Does she really think to compare herself to me?_ Cersei thought. _How dare she, this ugly trout fish._  

“I’d like the Vale, it sounds lovely,” Sansa was saying.

“You are always welcome at the Vale, but I imagine you’d do well in the South. You have such fine manners for such a young girl.”

Sansa blushed and Cersei felt aggrieved.

 _Now the woman fills my daughter’s head with lies,_ she thought.

“Robb is his mother’s pride and joy,” Jon Arryn was telling Ned.

She’d known the man was old, but he was even older than she expected, with the nose hair and gruff manners of a man of 80 years, not 60. Ned has always spoken so highly of him, but with this first impression, Cersei found it difficult to understand what made him so dear to her husband.

The boy, however… Almost against her will, the boy Robb impressed her. It was the way he carried himself. His stance suggested an expert swordsman.

A good match for her daughter, she knew. But there was something within her that cried out at the thought of losing her. _She is too young_ , Cersei thought. Much too young. This was how they made matches in the North she supposed. Of course the South was not much more enlightened, but they let the girls enjoy a tourney season or two before they married them off to strangers.

 _Mother protect her_ , she was thinking as her eyes found her daughter. _I do not know if I can anymore._

This was the safest path. The Vale was well-shielded, and Ned and Jon Arryn—no matter how little she liked the man—had a deep understanding.

At the table the men were now talking about the South. Cersei eavesdropped from her family table, half-watching Arya collect crumbs on her chin from her second scone, and half-listening to the loud, insistent drone of Lord Arryn’s voice as he sat with Ned.

“I am surprised not to find your sister here,” the man was saying. He eased forward with the stiffness of the aged and folded his hands. “All of Westeros believes she fled to Winterfell, with the help of your good-brother and the Princess.”

“You have heard about that?” Ned said. “I had believed the King would keep his sister’s part in the Princess’s flight quiet. But no, we do not know where they are. I told you the truth in my letter.”

Lord Arryn shook his head and lowered his voice. Cersei strained to hear. “No, no, that is not good, Ned. She would be safer here.”

“We are doing all we can to find her,” Ned said. “I have sent her letter after letter and met no reply.”

“Then she does not want to be found.”

Ned folded his hands too. “You know what I’ve told you of my sister. She is trying to protect me. I am sure of it.”

“Her intentions do not matter, I am afraid. This is just the moment the king has been waiting for.”

“He will not attack the North,” Ned said, stubbornly. “Not after the Greyjoys. Another war means another chance to lose his armies, the Loyalist Houses. He is a thinking man, and he would not be so rash.”

But Lord Arryn was shaking his head. “Do not be too sure, my boy,” he said. “You’ve not been to the capital. The King has changed. He has grown proud and the Greyjoys’ Rebellion only made him prouder. Reminded me of his father when I saw him last.”

“Surely not. He knew his father’s shortcomings.”

 “A Loyalist tale.” Lord Arryn shrugged. “But perhaps it is true. It does not matter now. Every Southron House is arming itself for war.”

Arya had got up from the table now, and was playing with the Arryn boy Bran. They were fighting each other with sticks. The kitchen dogs were following them, snapping at the branches with their jaws.

 _War._ The word echoed in Cersei’s ears, and across from her, Ned fell silent.  

It seemed hard to imagine, as she watched the children playing. It would not be an easy war either. Rhaegar was no Dragonknight, to be sure, but he was quick and his men were loyal to the point of fanaticism.

There was no denying the figure he cut on the battlefield. Cersei had heard stories of the day he slew that oaf on the Trident. His finest act, Cersei had to admit, even now.

She’d heard Robert fell ungracefully to his knees, less of a stag and more like a slain bear. It gave her pleasure to imagine it. 

If only the Dragon Prince had fallen beside him. But unfortunately, Rhaegar was very much alive.

Cersei got up abruptly. There was no time to waste on women's talk with her guest. It was time for getting ready for the wedding feast, and when she arrived in her chambers her gown was spread out on the bed, waiting for her, the way she liked.

More news came as she combed her hair, fresh from the bath.

Just within earshot, the swish of roughspun skirts: one of her maids was coming to see her.

“What is it?”

“Apologies, m’lady,” the girl said. “A letter from Lord Tywin.”

 _Cersei,_ read her father’s terse hand.

_I’m sure by now word has reached Winterfell of the events in King’s Landing. Do not trouble yourself. It will be dealt with, and your husband will be aided as necessary._

Cersei crumpled the letter in her fingers.

“Nothing,” she said aloud. “He tells me nothing of use.”

“Perhaps,” the servant girl ventured, “He was frightened the letter would be intercepted.”

Cersei resisted the urge to pinch the girl for such speculation; Ned did not like when she disciplined the servants.

“My lord father is never frightened, girl,” she said.

“Of course not, m’lady.”

As soon as the girl’s back was turned, Cersei threw the letter in the fire, and began to pace, her gown trailing behind her across the stone floor.

 _He does not trust me_ , she thought. _As he would trust a son_. _Does not believe me worth confiding in, plotting with…_

Oh, the things she had been denied at birth, when her twin brother came out holding her foot. Bearing, unlike her, a tiny cock between his fat baby legs.

_And seventeen years later, leaving me alone._

 

\--

 

**Catelyn Arryn**

The gods were good, at least the Mother if the others would not hear, but sometimes the price they demanded was too much.

“I will do my duty,” she said aloud. It was morning in Winterfell. She opened the window: the sky was clear behind the falcon banners of her husband’s house, but clouds on the horizon threatened rain.

_Appropriate._

The weather mirrored their circumstances: this match for her son was made in view of a future that looked stormier than ever, and that threat was more important than her feelings, more important than the man who spurned her as a young woman.

 _Men_ who had spurned her, really. The men of House Stark had much to answer for to Catelyn Arryn, but she could not hold it against them, not when one was dead and the other had offered the hand of his eldest daughter when the realm threatened war.

There was no reason to oppose this match.

 _I will sleep better once my son cloaks the girl_ , she thought, tasting bitterness at the back of her mouth. _And_ _I had always thought Northmen kept their word… But I will ensure this match is made._

Almost as soon as they received word from Lord Stark, Jon had begun preparations for the journey to Winterfell. Both of them were eager to reach Winterfell. Jon recalled Robert’s Rebellion with horror, and she knew Jon: if Lyanna’s disappearance put Westeros at risk, he would do whatever he could to preserve peace.

She kept an eye out for Lady Lyanna, or signs of her presence that morning on her way to break her fast, but there were none. If Lady Lyanna lived in the castle, she was well-concealed.

But Lord Stark was fostered at the Eyrie, and considered Jon like a father. Surely if Lyanna were here, if they trusted the Arryns with their daughter, they would find out soon enough.

The only women at the breakfast table were Lady Cersei and her daughters.

All of them looked up at her entrance, but Catelyn’s eyes met Cersei’s, and the other woman lifted her chin ever so slightly as they passed.

Catelyn tried to conceal her distaste. Cersei Lannister was the subject of many rumors, none of which painted her in a flattering light. Yet she was impeccably dressed today. Catelyn feel a frisson of self-consciousness at her own plain blue robes.

“Be on your best behavior,” she reminded her boys. Robb was a fine boy, but Bran was prone to moments of trouble-making. She hoped he would hold them in during their time in Winterfell.

_Though judging by that dirty girl-child of hers, Cersei has one of her own._

The girl with dirt on her face was Arya, she learned, and the second oldest-- beside a little boy of two or three-- was Sansa, a child of astonishing beauty, with a delicate build and features. She was disappointed for a moment her son was betrothed to the girl’s sister, and gave the young Lady Sansa a small smile, which was returned with a blush.

Catelyn introduced her sons, taking the measure of Myrcella as she did so. This girl would wed her son. And girl she was, no more than that. Gods, she had forgotten how fast they wed in wartime. This girl looked not much older than twelve or thirteen.

Although not as pretty as her sister, the girl had a sweet, polite manner, and a Lannister’s golden hair. Catelyn glanced at her son to gauge his reaction, and hid a smile: her son’s jaw had gone slack. Something in her relaxed. Theirs would not be a loveless match then.

Robb deserved nothing less.

Catelyn’s marriage—although not what she would have chosen-- was not misery. The Eyrie was more beautiful than any castle she imagined as a girl in Riverrun, and her sons were growing into good men, and if Jon himself lacked the passion or the temperament she would have enjoyed (or the face that used to make her heart race when she looked at Brandon Stark), well, that was the lot of women.

The blond head of Lady Cersei caught her eye as the woman loped out of the dining hall, called away by something more important. Catelyn wondered how much of Lady Cersei there was in Myrcella. She hoped it was not much.

The girl was young and seemed genuine enough, and truly she couldn’t have asked for a better match for Robb. Stark and Lannister blood was respectable, yes, and considering it was a wartime match, the boy could have ended up with a Frey or a Greyjoy. Indeed, once the war had begun there was no telling who they would be forced to wed to Bran.

Catelyn sighed. Her youngest was an odd boy, enough to be a changeling, and true to his manner, she had had a hard labor for him. He had been facing the wrong way in her womb, looking in some other direction than life.

“Any more blood from you and the Stranger would have raised that babe,” one of her women had said. And ever since then, she had watched him. 

He had the Mountain Clans in him, some part of that long-buried ancestry that seeped into the Arryn blood. 

Her lord husband was talking to Lord Stark, and Catelyn used the moment to look at him. As a boy Eddard Stark lived in his brother’s shadow. Though he and all of the North undoubtedly still sorrowed over Brandon’s death, some part of what had followed seemed to have been good to Ned.

There was steadiness there, strength—a grown man, with few traces of the boy he had been. Catelyn found herself staring a moment too long, and their eyes met. She looked down. Her cheeks felt hot, not only with the glance but the shame of it. She was no maid, and Lord Stark was as good as a good-brother now to her.

“Cat,” said Jon, spotting her on the edges of their conversation. “Do join us.”

Catelyn accepted with gratitude. For years her husband had insisted she remember her place in these conversations, but age and increasing respect for her capabilities had worn down that position.

“My lady,” said Ned Stark, with an incline of his head.

He did not kiss her hand, and Catelyn squashed a silly girlish disappointment that rose in her.

“Lord Stark,” she replied.

“Dreadful times,” said Jon, shaking his head. “We are fortunate to have the affection of North.”

“Indeed we are,” Catelyn echoed. “We were quite thankful for your letter.”

The corners of Ned’s mouth lifted, almost a smile.

“Yes, House Arryn would never turn down a friend in need,” Jon said, patting Ned on the shoulder.

“Although we hope there will be no trouble for you in the coming season,” said Catelyn.

Ned shrugged. “We will see.”

He looked down for a moment and then looked up at her intently.

“We appreciate the loyalty of House Arryn all the more to know it has perhaps, not been earned.”

She struggled to hold his warm, dark gaze.

“House Stark has ever been a loyal friend to House Arryn,” she said, unable to say anything more.

It was an apology, a veiled one but one nonetheless.

She had long dreamed of hearing this, first from Brandon, and then from Ned. And that he was saying it, the one they had called the Quiet Wolf, the Stark boy who took the North’s honor more seriously than any of his siblings, that he would admit a broken oath in front of a much-needed ally… Catelyn could hardly believe it. 

“If there were any indiscretion,” she said. “It has been forgotten. As friends do for each other.”

She was not imagining it-- Ned Stark was smiling.

 

\--

 

 

**Myrcella Stark**

She was frightened. She must not be, she knew. Hadn’t Mother told her? She must be brave, like a lioness.

Her stomach was already tight when she woke that morning. It was a bright day, far too bright for a day on which she would give away everything dear in her life. She looked at sleeping Sansa in her bed, her hair fanned out across the sheets.

She stood there for a long while. _Who will look after you when I’m gone?_

Her sister did many things well, but the world was cruel and Sansa was soft. Arya she didn’t worry about as much, though she knew she should. Arya was quick with Needle, even if she’d never take to embroidery.

She bound her hair in a golden net, and put on a green dress. She would never be graceful as Sansa, but she could do her best.

 _Will he like me?_ She asked herself. It was a silly, girlish thought. Mother had made it clear her happiness was not the goal of the match.

She saw him sooner than she anticipated. They came to breakfast with the Starks, affording her the first glimpse of her new family.

The Arryns were tall people with red or brown hair—or that was the influence of the Tullys, she supposed. Lady Catelyn was a beautiful woman, and her sons were handsome. Lord Arryn was too old for her to say whether he had been handsome as well.

“It is bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” he said.

Robb. Her soon-to-be lord husband.  

She felt almost dizzy under his gaze. She could not have said whether she liked him or not. The fact of him was overwhelming; all she could think of was that, in less than a day, she would share his bed. Her tongue felt heavy and her head muddled.

He had kindness in his eyes.

“I am glad to meet you as well,” she heard herself saying.

She knew she was supposed to reach out her hand, but she quailed under his gaze. Wasn’t he standing too close to her than was proper? She would have to ask Mother later.

But that was all she saw of the Arryns for the rest of daylight hours. The rest of her day was absorbed in bathing.

Winterfell was located over a hot spring, so bathing was a pleasant part of her routine, but today was special. The servants had seldom paid so much attention to her, even trimming her nails and sloughing off the hair on her legs.

“It feels funny,” she said before she could stop herself. And it did feel strange—her legs had never been shaved though she supposed it was customary for women elsewhere.

“He’s a Southron,” said her maid, shrugging. “They’ll be used to a hairless maid, I expect.”

 _But I’m a Northerner_ , she thought, but she bit her tongue. Not anymore she wasn’t.

“Be grateful we aren’t shaving more than that,” she muttered at the look at Myrcella’s face.

Myrcella narrowed her eyes. _You would never speak so in front of my lady mother_ , she wanted to say, but in truth the woman’s chatter was welcome. It was better than the gaping silence inside her.

Yet her fear felt smaller now. Lord Robb could have been old, ugly, or stupid, or a barbarian. But he wasn’t any of those things.

There was the queerest feeling in her stomach. She expected to do her duty and wed for the sake of her family. In fact, the night before, as she slid beneath the covers, listening to Arya breathe (her littlest sister slept soundly and woke early), hadn’t she told herself that she was protecting them with this marriage? She would wed for political gain, and they could marry for love.

With three girls surely one of them would escape. She wondered which of her sisters it would be. She hoped it was Sansa; a girl like her could not bear to be wed to a man she did not love.

Still, she steeled herself for the worst. Lord Robb had fine manners and strong arms and shoulders (she felt herself blush), yes, but manners and looks were not everything. King Rhaegar was beautiful and refined if the songs sung of him were any indication, and yet he had stolen her aunt and killed her uncles all the same.

 _This match will help defeat him_ , she told herself. She was out of the bath now, naked as her name-day. She saw herself in the looking-glass and her body suddenly seemed all freckles. Would her lord husband like what he saw?

The maids began lacing her into her underclothes and brushing her hair, and then there was no more time for thought or reflection.

In the last few minutes before she was to ride into the godswood, her mother came in. Mother was in a gown of Lannister red, her golden hair spilling onto her back.

She was so beautiful, like a bride. Myrcella’s eyes began to fill with tears.

“Don’t cry, little lioness,” Mother said briskly, moving forward to adjust the stays on her dress. “He will be a good husband, and he is handsome and strong besides. More than many girls can dream of.”

“I know he will,” Myrcella said. “Mother I -- That’s not why I’m crying.”

“Then what is it my love?”

“I was thinking about you,” she said. “On your wedding day.”

Mother looked up, startled, but there was knocking on the door and they were already late for the wedding; everyone else was gathering under the grove of trees in the heart of the weirwood and she was about to be married in her slate-grey dress and maiden’s cloak.

A litter took the bride into the weirwood—Father’s one concession to Southron ceremony.

Myrcella thought she should say something, but the silence was broken only by the sound of rain on the roof of the litter.

When they came to the wedding party, Myrcella felt a rush of relief at the sight of their water-logged faces. Father, stern and Northern in the rain, Arya,in a dress with a clean hem—for once—and Sansa with Rickon in her arms. Sansa’s face beamed up at her sister, a bright spot in the godswood.

Lady Catelyn was tearful as Myrcella had been a moment ago; Lord Arryn moved to comfort her. The source of her tears was obvious: her son Lord Robb who stood in front of the Heart Tree, looking unruffled by the rain.

Her father helped Myrcella down from the litter and escorted her to the heart tree opposite Robb.

“It is very simple. All you need is to say the vows,” her father said.

Myrcella felt a stab of panic.

“I don’t know them,” she said.

“Yes you do,” Mother said. “Every story your nurses ever told you ends with those words.”

She looked up into Lord Robb’s eyes. He was mouthing the words, trying to help her, trying to teach her....

“I am yours,” she said, realization dawning.

“And you are mine.”

With one swift motion, he swung a cloak around her shoulders, blue over gray, and he kissed her.

The moment his lips touched hers, she felt a sensation like a spark, run through her like a lightning-struck tower in a storm.

“Gods,” she whispered. “But this is nice.”

She felt his smile before she saw it.

 

\--

**Arya Stark**

 

“Keep your hem clean,” her mother had admonished her throughout the ceremony. “And don’t pull faces.” Arya watched, half-repulsed, as the Arryn boy lowered his head to kiss her sister. Then she couldn’t help it, she closed her eyes in disgust. She felt her mother’s consternation beside her, but it was too late.

The ceremony was over.

Arya tried in vain to keep her hem out of the mud but the rain was relentless all the way back to the litter.

Once inside, her mother let out a noise like a heavy, indignant sigh. “That’s over, then,” she said.

Arya looked up curiously and saw her mother’s eyes were not dry.

_Is she crying?_

Her mother _never_ cried.

Arya waited for her father to see what was happening but he was looking away from them, outside of the screen at the retreating Arryns, which now included Myrcella.

Sansa was talking about the ceremony.

“I didn’t realize the wedding would be so short! Was it so short when you were wed, Mother?”

Their mother did not look at her when she replied. “Yes, Sansa.”

Father looked across at the three of them: Arya, Sansa, and Rickon in Sansa’s lap, wearing his baby clothes.

“Now there are three,” he said.

Sansa giggled but Arya frowned. It was just like Myrcella to go off to be wed and leave her alone.

“It might be you next,” said her mother, looking at Sansa. Sansa’s smile froze.

Thunder crashed and Rickon began to cry.

“Don’t worry,” Sansa said in a gentle voice. She kissed his cheek. “We’ll be back to the castle soon, and we’ll have a feast.”

Her father looked uncomfortable in the plush cabin but Mother had requested he would not ride on horseback to his daughter’s wedding to a Southron lord.

Myrcella and the Arryn litters beat them back to the castle.

She was already getting out of the carriage when they arrived, placing her hand in Lord Robb’s as he helped her down by the waist. They were radiant: Lord Robb was laughing and Myrcy was blushing and beaming even in her sopping wet dress.

Arya was struck dumb by the sight. Her oldest sister was _giddy_ in a way Arya had only ever seen on Sansa. She tried to catch her sister’s eye as the doors swung open and they processed into the hall, but she seemed to be in a world of her own now.

At the front of the room was a long table with twin chairs. Myrcella and her new lord husband made their way to the table.

Cheers went up all around them as the Starks entered. Arya grinned. Her father’s bannermen were there after all.

Arya swore she counted hundreds: the Karstarks and the Umbers, the Hornwoods, but also the Manderleys, the Boltons— even a few of the Reeds, strange men from the fens who gave Arya shivers.  One of her father’s closest men clapped a hand on his shoulder as he entered.

Behind them were the Arryns. Arya stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the youngest boy as they entered. Bran Arryn was his name, she reminded herself.

“There’s so many people!” Bran said. Arya started to roll her eyes before remembering her manners. It _was_ a lot of people, she supposed, to someone used to the isolation of the Eyrie.

“Yes it is.” Even her own face flushed as the noise of the crowd grew louder, ascending into a roar.

She and Bran peeled away to sit with their families on either end of the hall. She shrugged as if to say she was sorry to leave. She hoped she’d made a good impression. It would be so dull with only Sansa for company during the feast.

When they were all seated, Lord Arryn introduced Myrcella and Lord Robb.

“As my lady wife said earlier,” he said. “It is good to have friends in these times.”

He indicated red-haired Lady Arryn, who smiled in reply.

Lord Stark nodded his assent. “More than friends, my lord. You are as a father to me.”

The two men seized each other’s forearms and the Arryn clan yelled and pounded the tables.

Then one of the Northmen, a man Arya knew but had never spoken to, stood up. He had a grizzled beard and hands that looked like they could pick up an ax as quick as a sword.

Lord Karstark, Arya remembered.

Her father’s bannerman from the House of their closest kinsmen.

“So what do you think, Lord Stark?” Lord Karstark said. “When I woke up this morning, I thought to meself, this looks like an army!”

Her father’s face went stony in reply.

“Well,” Karstark said, lifting his chin. “Is it an army, Ned?”

Her father lowered his head.

“I think he’s taken enough from us, don’t you?”

Arya felt her mother shift beside her.

Arya chanced a look at her face, and drew back in surprise. Her mother wore the same expression as Lord Karstark, the same bright-eyed fury.

 “Rickard,” her father said to Lord Karstark. He said it in the same tone he used to warn Arya against the kind of mischief that posed a danger to her, like climbing the castle or borrowing his sword.

But Karstark did not sit down. His lower lip trembled.

“Brandon Stark.”

Her father’s mouth tightened.

Karstark went on, counting off his fingers. “Rickard Stark, your lord father. A good friend.”

“Robert Baratheon on the Trident. Your own foster brother.”

Karstark laughed.

“At this rate, he will not have a kingdom to rule!”

He looked about to sit down, but then he shook his head and swayed on his feet.

“Lyanna Stark!” he bellowed. “Where is she?”

There was silence in the hall.

It was not her father, but Jon Arryn who replied.

“She is not here.”

Lord Karstark plainly didn’t believe him at first but a moment passed, more than a moment, and no one contradicted him.

“We have to find her then,” Karstark said, eyes flashing. “We’ll declare war on every house that stands in our way.”

“Rickard,” said her father. “We will do everything we can.”

Karstark studied him for a long moment, frowning. Then his eyes widening at what he read there, he nodded.

“My sword is yours,” he said. There were a murmur as his men repeated the words.

_My sword is yours._

Arya felt her heart beating fast.

Her mother rose beside her.

“I think you have your army, Lord Karstark,” her mother said.

 

\--

 

The rest of the feast was as dull as Arya had feared. Yet after Lord Karstark’s speech, there was a edge to the warriors gathered there, a wildness in the air she found quite exciting.

Her mother and father were deep in a conversation about something or other—a letter from Mother’s lord father, as far as Arya could tell—and didn’t talk much to her or Sansa.

 “Mother, may I be excused?” Arya asked after a length of time had passed.

Mother glanced at her, then waved a hand to say she could go.

She went to the Arryns’ table to see Bran; he looked as bored as she felt.

“This is an old castle,” the boy said, by way of an opening.

Arya bristled. “It’s a good one, though.”

“No I didn’t mean it like that,” said Bran hastily. “It’s old, it’s got high walls. There must have been so many battles.”

Arya nodded. “We were the Kings of Winter once. Before the dragons came.”

Bran’s eyes lit up. “The Kings of Winter?”

Arya felt conspiratorial. “You know there’s a wall up there right? There’s all kinds of things beyond the wall. Some say there’s _monsters_.”

Bran’s eyes nearly popped.

“And _we_ kept them out,” Arya went on. “So they made us their rulers.”

“I’ve heard about the Wall,” said Bran. “I thought it was just a story.”

Arya waggled her finger.

“No, it’s real,” she said. “I can show you.”

“You can?”

She nodded. “If you climb up far enough, you can see it from the highest spire.”

“Let’s go,” said Bran, swinging his legs off the bench. Then he stopped. “What will our fathers say?”

“They won’t even know we’re gone,” said Arya. “Come on.”

 

\---


End file.
